Title: more lame Strib reporting
Item
from "If you ran the newspaper" by Lou Gelfand in today's
Strib
Credibility
Donna Halvorsen's report last Sunday of a peace rally at the
State Capitol said the crowd was "estimated by Capitol police at
300." Sue Ann Martinson, one of the organizers, said their count
was 1,105. She said the source is Ricardo Levins Morales, who used a
hand counter. She said, "It's insulting that the press listens
always to the police. They are never good counters." She wants
"the press to take their own count."
Halvorsen said, "No one
approached me or called to say they had a number."
(Full
link: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/801785.html)
Lynnell's comment:
Well,
details, details, a discrepency of only 800 people. And hey, call me
old-fashioned, but as a journalist, I always assumed it was MY job to
call around or approach organizers for their numbers. I didn't
realize I could sit in a cubicle and simply wait for organizers to
figure out what reporter was covering their event and track me
down---or that my passivity would published in the newspaper as a
credibility defense.
Sometimes the Strib is so bad, you have to laugh. Beats
crying. Especially in a one-daily town.
Reporting 101: you get the police count; you get the
organizers' count. You print 'em both because there's usually a huge
discrepancy. From my experience, cops routinely under-estimate the
numbers at leftist-sort of rallies. And organizers are notorious of
over-estimating. A guy who's willing to put his name in the
paper and say he used a hand-counter is unusual. Too bad the reporter
didn't pick up the phone.
I
suppose I shouldn't be so picky, but this little item ran after seven
days of unusually bad Strib coverage of RT Rybak---which has been
snide, dismissive and negative---make that contemptuous-- from the
beginning of his campaign. The Strib attitude seems to have been,
"We Decide Who The Major Players Are....." And RT
(along with some other impressive candidates for a variety of
offices) just didn't come up through the proper ranks. Wasn't an
Insider. Didn't have the right connections. I could rant on and on
and add more specific examples. But let's just say in this election
cycle, I haven't been too impressed with the Fourth Estate. Although
I suppose, if the polls are right, I shouldn't be bothered---the
negative coverage hasn't seemed to have hurt him.
The
most important poll, however, is on Nov. 6th. Everyone get out and
vote!
Lynnell Mickelsen
An old
geezer at age 44 in Ward 13, Linden Hills who will be voting for List
members Tracey Nordstrom (not Nordquist as I earlier posted---sorry,
all those Scandahoovians sound like) and Greg Abbott, whom I failed
to mention in my first post.
PS: I
do have to thank Lou Gelfand for including the line from last week's
travel section on the construction of a large green statute in Blue
Earth. "The governor, Miss America and Miss Minnesota were
on hand to watch the erection of the giant." I had missed
this when it ran the first time. Thanks, Lou.
--
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