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February 20, 2006

Holding the media's feet to the fire

One of the key roles that blogs play is to press the regular media into reporting stories. Another is to make sure that they report the FULL story..and call bullshit when they don't. Still another is to hold organizations to account when the regular media fails to do so.

Last week Noemie Maxwell of Washblog hit that last one out of the park.

Noemie's outstanding piece demonstrates how blogs can hold regular media's feet to the fire:

Washington Farm Bureau's President, Steve Appel, recently made public comments on the occasion of the kickoff for the land use initiative that organization has just filed. [Carla comments: For Oregonians reading this, think Measure 37]

First off, I congratulate Mr. Appel for bearing a quintessentially apropos name for his work here in our apple state.

But back to more prosaic matters, alas.

In that kickoff speech, which is published on the website promoting the initiative, Mr. Appel tells about Bruce Ritter who owns a small amount of non-agricultural land (10 acres) and presents his case as an example of a property owner whose plight resembles that of thousands of others across the state who would be helped by the initiative.

This choice is a matter of some public interest. Why not a farmer? And why only one family?

Odder than this choice of a representative landowner, and more troubling, is the inaccuracy in Mr. Appels' statement about the Ritter property. Half of the assertions made by Mr. Appel are easily debunked. The other half are not substantiated and are, in fact, shown by the public record to almost certainly be untrue.

Noemie then proceeds to offer a point by point rebuttal of the Farm Bureau speech, not to mention the the innacurate testimony provided by Bruce Ritter to the Thurston County Planning Commission.

Deja vu all over again.

Oregonians were subjected to similiar dishonesty from those who managed to pass Measure 37 in our state. Unfortunately we didn't have someone like Noemie, combing through the records and pushing the local media to cover the entire story.

At least not to the point where an echo chamber was created.

But the media in Washington has been served notice by Noemie and by like minded bloggers who write the stories in their entirety. Woe to the media denizens who lazily take the words of men like Appel and Ritter, without doing the research and groundwork on their accusations.

The local blogs are watching you.

Posted by Carla at February 20, 2006 02:40 PM