David Brauer wrote: > Michael Atherton writes: > > > That's funny, Mr. Mann and I seem to be the only candidates willing to > > engage in ongoing discussion on the list server. So is it necessary > > to discount these dialogs by characterizing us as "talking to" rather than > > not "talking with" other list members? > > I was referring to your criticism of the paper, not your discussion on > the list. Other candidates who had issues with our coverage contacted us > directly. You merely shot snarky asides and serious charges without > details...not a discussion there.
If it hasn't become obvious over the years, I don't enjoy engaging in conversations with you. It's like discussing Ethics with a Sophist, neither pleasant, informative, or productive. As to contacting you with issues about the coverage: what the point? It would only reinforce your power and my impotency. How's that prayer go? "God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Change the things I can, And the ability to know the difference." > None of the profiles were meant to be positive or negative...that's not > what we do. Michael is running as an outsider, and his message - try to > deny it after reading this list - is critical of the current system. > Voters can make up their own minds based on their own feeling about the > current system. Whether they were meant to be or not, the fact is that some appear to be more positive than others. Readers can judge for themselves. > This is a little like the fulminating about the "52-year-old grad > student" thing: it is what it is, neither positive nor negative - unless > you believe there's something wrong with the 52-year-old grad students. > (I don't.) Profiles commonly list age and occupation, as we and the > Strib did. It's a fact. Right. I suppose that some people, like Brandon Lacy Campos, have the vision necessary for recognizing bias and injustice when they see it and others, such as yourself, do not. I prefer to draw my friends and acquaintances from the former. > > I don't understand why, > > if the Journal's goal was to provide information to voters why they > > wouldn't include a canidate' sphone number or website address. > I was taught that if you don't understand something, ask. > To be honest, the reporter was scrambling to finish all the interviews > and 10 profiles and we were scrambling to produce the paper. I wish we > had included the information and am sorry we didn't. I can put it in the > Sept. 9 issue, which most people get but probably won't read before the > Sept. 10 election. (Readers: email me off list whether you think this is > worth the space in that issue.) We obviously will print websites and > phone numbers for the general election. This has to be the weakest excuse for incompetent journalism that I have ever heard. Contact information could have easily been recorded prior to the interviews, after all she had to be able to reach us to arrange them. And, if she didn't take the time to look at the candidates websites then her background research was incomplete. I think that we should acknowledge the obvious, the decision not to include additional contact information was just bad journalism. > I am mollified that someone can punch "Michael Atherton Minneapolis" > into Google and find your website pretty quickly. Although I noticed > your umn-dot page does not list a link to your own election site! An Google search doesn't get you to my campaign website it gets you to my personal website at the U. So if voters are trying to research positions on the issues the can find out my favorite movies, my hobbies, family pictures, and my professional vitae, but nothing about my campaign. Why would you be mollified by this point. I try to keep my personal and professional life separate from politics, why is it surprising that I wouldn't include a link to my campaign website? I feel that it's rude to put social pressure on my friends and colleagues to vote for me. What is much more surprising is that a story providing voters with election information would fail to provide a link to candidates' websites. > By the way, the Strib included websites, etc. in their school board > profiles, but still they are part of the conspiracy to limit voters' > information? "Just because I believe in conspiracies doesn't mean that the FBI is not following me." Funny, I don't remember labeling this as a "conspiracy." I had said, "... that the media has limited access to candidates views ...", and by way of inference, placed greater emphasis on their own views. I don't think you guys get together in poorly lit smoke filled basement rooms in the furthest reaches of the warehouse district to conspire as to who gets elected in the city. But I think that it's pretty obvious to everyone that the Tribune's editorial board does try to influence elections, why else would they give endorsements? So go to the Star Tribune's website (http://www.startribune.com/) and do a search on "Michael Atherton" what comes up is the editorial not the voters' guide. Do a search on "school board election" you also won't get the voters' guide. In fact I haven't discovered a search that does bring up the voters' guide. In order to find it you have to know to click "politics" and then you can find it. That's not really a big deal, but as we get closer to the election I would hope that Tribune would put a button on the homepage labeled "Voters Guide" given that's where the most complete election information resides. E-Democracy, for some strange reason, doesn't provide links to local races. I will be placing candidate links on my own webpage soon so that voters will be able to compare and contrast people's positions. > > While we're discussing technical details > > perhaps Mr. Brauer could explain why Ms. Farmer's residence is listed > as > > Seward rather than Prospect Park? > > C'mon, Michael: it's called a mistake. Ms. Farmer called us, was civil, > and we will print a correction in the next issue. So, you want to discuss the impact of "corrections" printed after the fact? I have no idea if this was a simple mistake or not. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was. If so, it's just one of many mistakes in your feature, which I'm not sure are due to sloppy writing or poor editing. I grew up in a time when we idealized journalists. They were heroes. Today it seems that editors' egos are sometimes bigger than the stories they publish. > As editor, I'm very open to criticism of our coverage. However, aside > from a couple of snarky asides on this list, Michael has not made any > specific objections known to me, so there's been no chance to discuss > them. Who knows, I might learn something - and so might he! You requested my opinion, now you have it. Michael Atherton http://QualityEd.US Candidate for Minneapolis School Board Prospect Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
