Sunday, March 6, 2016

The Difference Between Coverage and Cover-Up

Quick: What's the difference between my dog and Paul Gottlieb?

Now, if you said my dog is better looking than Paul Gottlieb, that's true, but not the answer I'm looking for. No, the key difference is that when I let my dog outside, he's a dog, and he loves to go dig things up. But if you let Paul Gottlieb outside, he's supposedly a reporter, yet he just loves to cover things up.

One reveals, one conceals.

Yet, you might think that Gottlieb's status as a "reporter" would compel him to go forth and dig up, to reveal, to, you know, report. Ah, but...


Anyway, let's step outside of the coverage of Port Angeles from locals, and see how it looks to outsiders. Let's revisit that Canadian TV coverage from just a few days ago. Hopefully you've seen the snippet, the one that describes the "ailing businesses" in Port Angeles, and the "sense of desperation." That seems a pretty frank and realistic view of Port Angeles. Ailing businesses, a sense of desperation, and all they neglected to mention was a thoroughly corrupt local system of governing. You can argue about the scale of those things, I suppose, but no rational person would deny the existence of all those things in Port Angeles.

How did it get that way? How did things get so bad? How did businesses get so desperate that they're willing to take seventy-five cents on the dollar just to try and get someone, anyone, into their shops? How did public anger reach such a point that so many people are agitating for a majority of the City Council to step down?

Of course, there are probably a number of causative factors. No one thing or person is to blame for the totality of the dysfunction and decay in Port Angeles. But there is one thing, one element that can be blamed for aiding and enabling the destruction, distrust and decay. There is one resource in the community that has self-stifled its own ability to make a real difference. And that one thing is the pathetic and compliant local press, which is to say, the inky toilet paper known as the Peninsula Daily News.

The examples are legion. Today's coverage of the "return of the Coho" that fails to mention that there were protesters there is but the most recent example. The PDN doesn't even pretend to try and cover news; it just tries to fashion news-like stories that give an impression of reporting what's going on in Clallam County. There are different tactics - the slanted coverage, the total non-coverage, the greatly, ridiculously delayed (and partial) coverage, etc. - but they all fail to meet even the barest of journalistic standards for full and unbiased reporting.


All this effort - or lack of effort - is done in the service of propping up a corrupt, aging and clearly failing status quo. There are people of influence who must be obeyed, and whose egos must be stroked, and whose interests must be protected. But this is a short-term, self-destructive approach to reporting, to governing, and to economic success.

Again, Port Angeles is a town that is dying. The population is falling. The economy is weak, and unemployment is high. Drug abuse rates are also high. Disgust and frustration with so-called local leadership is through the roof. The infrastructure is failing, corruption is endemic, and the City is carrying a truly terrifying amount of debt. Clearly, undeniably, things aren't going well.

But you'd never know that from reading the PDN. They are completely complicit in the death of Port Angeles; they have put the noose around their own neck and tighten it a little more every day. Which is to say, it is also clear that ignoring the myriad problems facing Port Angeles isn't making those problems go away. Which is to say, there are stories and truths to be told - that must be told - if the town, and the businesses, and the newspaper, are to simply survive.

This blog tries to tell some of those stories. The Port O Call tries to tell some of those stories. (See their new story exposing the wicked, twisted world of Judge Rick Porter for an excellent example of one such tale that needs telling.) But the PDN? They are content to sit back and feel that noose tighten a bit more with each passing day.

I always think of a few years back when the PDN did a big "story" on the City buying new chairs for the City Council members. They spun it like it was some sort of big spending, fat cat thing to do, buying seven chairs (from a local source) for a couple of thousand dollars. The way they positioned it, you'd think they'd hit scandal central.

Except, at the same time, they were studiously not doing any in-depth (or just plain any) reporting on the investigation into Karen Rogers. Or the outrageous lies Glenn Cutler told to justify the $50 million dollar Turd Tank. Or the City's ballooning debt burden. Or Don Perry's inappropriate interactions with female staff members at the City. Or the backroom, sweetheart deal when the Port essentially gave away public lands to land rapist Dan Morrison for his stupid sprint boats. Or, or, or...You get the picture. But the public never did, at least not those who count on the PDN to report items of public interest and importance. Literally MILLIONS of dollars were flying out the window, and the PDN was patting itself on the back for "exposing" two grand worth of chairs.


And so you end up here. With "ailing businesses" and a "sense of desperation." No, the PDN isn't the causative factor in all this, but the fact remains that it could have had a curative effect. Lance those boils, heal those wounds, and move on. Instead, the PDN just keeps adding layer upon layer of BS and sunshine over the wounds to the community, which only causes them to fester and worsen.

A professional and ethical press is supposed to act as a cure for what ails a society. But the PDN doesn't provide any antidote, it just keeps doling out the same old sugar-coated, community-killing poison.

23 comments:

  1. Thank you, once again, for telling it so clearly.

    If only the so-called leadership in this community could hear it, all get out of the way, and let the place prosper.

    So many egos in the way.

    So many big fish in a way too small pond.

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  2. You can keep slapping a band-aid over a gunshot wound, but you'll still end up bleeding to death.

    And there's Port Angeles. Bleeding to death.

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  3. Thank you CK for saying what needs to be loudly said, and repeated, at every opportunity.
    Thugs have run this place for too long, including Sound Publishing Inc., the publisher of Peninsula Daily Nefariousness and the Sequim Grabbette

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  4. Attention Scott Nagel: Get yourself a big bag of loonies, and maybe you can buy the Lincoln Theater for 25% less than the asking price. Hurry, this is a limited time offer!

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  5. I saw both the PDN photographer and the reporter walk right past the group of protesters. Not like they didn't know what happened, weren't there, or didn't see anything.

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  6. I sent an email to Sound Publishing this morning pointing them to this blog and also referencing Port O Call as both being far more timely and relevant sources of info and asked them to please take a good hard look at their local outfit here. I did it respectfully saying that folks here would really welcome a transparent and non iased publication but suggested they might need to clean house to regain trust. I'll let you know if I receive a response.

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  7. I sent an email to Sound Publishing this morning pointing them to this blog and also referencing Port O Call as both being far more timely and relevant sources of info and asked them to please take a good hard look at their local outfit here. I did it respectfully saying that folks here would really welcome a transparent and non iased publication but suggested they might need to clean house to regain trust. I'll let you know if I receive a response.

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    1. Thanks to both of you. Please do let us know if you hear anything. And I'll let you all know if and when I get any love letters from Edna.

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    2. Didn't mean to post twice - the curse of the slow connection...

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    3. It's It's not not a a problem problem. And better a slow connection than no connection, eh?

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    4. No kidding. Can you imagine if we had no internet and our only source of information was *gasp* the PDN or KONP? At least even KONP gets info out there sometimes just a smidge ahead of the PDN.

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    5. I know this will get lost to others, but just as a followup fyi - I never did receive a response from Sound Publishing. The email I wrote to them wasn't inflammatory at all either. It was truly making an honest request of them to please look into the issue of reporting by the PDN here so that we who have long canceled our subscriptions might consider renewing. Apparently they don't want our business.

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    6. Well, thanks for the follow up here, anyway. I haven't ever heard anything either - no comments, no cease and desist orders, nothing.

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  8. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead

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  9. "A professional and ethical press is supposed to act as a cure for what ails a society. But the PDN doesn't provide any antidote, it just keeps doling out the same old sugar-coated, community-killing poison."

    I disagree.

    I think it's my responsibility. I think it's yours too. In fact, the last entity I would put that responsibility on, would be the press. Their job is to report news. That is all. I don't want them to tell me how to think about it.

    So let's take the "professional" and "ethical", and apply it to ourselves first. For instance, is it either professional or ethical to target Paul Gottleib's physical appearance in your opening?

    Does that make any point other than to instantly instill animosity?

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    1. Oh, please...It was just a joke. Much like the "unbiased" nature of Paul Gottlieb's reporting. A joke.

      And whatever animosity Paul Gottlieb has for this site - and for the people of Port Angeles - it's already deeply instilled.

      And you seem to be skipping over the key point which is that it is the JOB of a newspaper to report the news, and the PDN fails miserably at that task. Miserably. This isn't about telling people "how to think." It's to report the facts of what happened - who, what, where, why and how. That sort of thing.

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    2. Oh no. When I say that your jibe at Gottlieb's visage had not purpose but to instill animosity, I wasn't talking about animosity from Gottlieb. I was talking about animosity from your readers.

      "Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream."~ Rush Limbaugh

      "Ariana Huffington is unattractive, both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision." ~ Donald Trump


      You're in find company, my friend.

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    3. Typos aside...Huh?

      Thanks for clarifying, though. Allow me to do the same.

      I assume that most of the people who read this blog are at least somewhat familiar with Paul Gottlieb, and thus already have some sort of natural dislike or animosity towards him. But, for those who do not, yes, you bet, I hope to "instill" some, or at least plant a tiny little seed of it in them.

      People who choose to be liars and hypocrites (to name but a couple of Paul's key qualities) are, in my opinion, much, much less deserving of sympathy than people who do not engage in those "lifestyle choices."

      "Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over." (Oliver Wendell Holmes) Paul Gottlieb doesn't - Oops! - accidentally stumble over people - he kicks them. So, if occasionally someone kicks back, good for them. (In my opinion.)

      Hopefully you've read the next piece on this blog, which outlines some of the types of unsavory and unethical behavior I'm talking about - above and beyond just writing slanted, distorted and just plain untrue "news" stories.

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    4. I would be interested in Paul Gottlieb doing an expose' on this blog. I'm sure the public would love to learn your true identity.

      I mean, if you're just some crotchety old woman like me, it's not newsworthy.

      But if you had aspirations in this town, it would explain why you hide your identity. You already know this is bad behavior - behavior that most people don't tolerate from their children.

      What would it do to your reputation?

      All the work you've ever done would be permanently tainted along with all the people who have associated with you.

      You can't behave this way on one hand and expect people to believe that you're a catalyst for any positive change. Any valid points you have are lost in vitriol and hatred - that is your overriding message.

      "Lance those boils..." How about we start with this one? You know who I am, I didn't make a secret account to respond to you here.

      We all know who Paul Gottlieb is, he doesn't hide behind a pseudonym. He's out there for all the world to see.

      Cherie Kidd sits in front of you and your angry mob without a disguise.

      But you? You're hiding.

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    5. Sigh...Ruth, Ruth, Ruth...You're obviously a latecomer to this blog. If you want to find out more about "me," then you can read through older posts. I'm not going to go into it again to please one "crotchety old woman."

      And I would, in fact, LOVE for the PDN to try and do an "expose" of this blog. That would only raise its profile, bring more people here, and expose more people to an alternative to the PDN's lies, distortions and slander.

      But they will never, ever do that, Ruth. Never. Because to even attempt such a thing would be to, in some way, admit to their own shortcomings.

      Finally, please ponder this for a moment: Your comments here, your pushback at me, is up and available for all to see. Yep, I'm a jerk, I'm showing "animosity" towards Paul Gottlieb. And you're telling me to knock it off, because I'm a jerk. (See above.)

      But here you are, Ruth. And here you'll stay. Which is not how it works at the PDN's website. If there are contrary comments there, they "update" a story online and wipe out all the comments they don't want people to see.

      So while you may find me worthy of censure, I am not acting as a censor. The free flow of ideas and information. That's what this blog is about. The PDN is about selling ads and making no waves.

      As I've said before: They distort, we deride.

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    6. Ruth, you said the following, before descending into personal attacks:

      "Their job is to report news. That is all. I don't want them to tell me how to think about it."

      But, that is what the complaints are all about. That, as we have seen, the PDN only SELECTIVELY reports what they want, and as those of us who have been involved in issues know, the reporting is slanted, distorted and manipulated by the like of Paul Gottlieb.

      Read Marolees' response to how she was "quoted" and how the issues were distorted by, yes, Paul Gottlieb, in the recent story about the Ethics Violations hearing.

      You say "Cherie Kidd sits in front of you and your angry mob without a disguise." There are two things obvious from your statement: Either you weren't in attendance at the events under review or haven't seen the video of Cherie Kidd that night; or, you are aware, and think such behavior is supportable.

      If the latter is true, then we have nothing left to talk about. Civil, city government simply cannot be conducted in the fashion Cherie Kidd attempted that night. Period.

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  10. Most of what you say is valid, some is slanted negative - when you confuse the behaviors of some with the hopes, dreams and hard work of most - But there is more than enough in what you say to warrant another newspaper - maybe three days a week delivery and two alternate days on the new TV channel. Anyway, the trick will be to actually report, not get caught in the PDN's content free environment, but also not get caught in the all opinion all the time of the Port o Call. Hope you do.

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  11. Nor is this blog an official city newspaper with an even higher public duty attached to it. It's a BLOG.

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