The blog in your own eye

In case you weren't already aware, the recent WOOD TV 9 broadcast probably alerted you to the presence of Save Our Saxons, a web site dedicated to exposing some dirty laundry concerning the Hastings Public School system. Unfortunately, instead of tackling the actual issues at hand, the channel 8 story chose to focus on the less controversial issue (at least as far as a TV station is concerned) of whether such information is best discussed on a web site presenting "one side" of the issue. Once again, by completely missing the meat of the issue the media has shown in its handling of this story why blogs such as West Michigan Politics and sites such as Save Our Saxons have sprung into existence.

As HHS teacher Larry Christopher states on the Save Our Saxons site, he was forced on-line when the local media dropped the ball, as he saw it. I too decided to create this site when I heard several instances of stories suppressed or ignored by the local media outlets. While your average citizen doesn't get any favors from the press, if you're an important person the chances of your drunk driving arrest getting reported in the local media aren't very high. In this case, the schools are a solid source of revenue for certain news outlets and that, along with other possible conflicts of interest (family members of the HHS Athletic Director employed by the company which published the Hastings Banner, personal friendships or business relationships within a small town community, etc.), might possibly be coloring the news that is reported. Now, I'm not sure you could find someone more dedicated to improving our schools and our community than Banner publisher Fred Jacobs but one has to wonder why none of the allegations put forth by Christopher and others seems to have made it into the light of day before now. Now, the Banner is a far better paper than most cities the size of Hastings have- it has often made enemies that other publishers might have not made but I have heard too many stories about news that never made it to the surface because of a personal or business connection and I think some of the commentary on this issue has been a bit disingenuous.

In the story be Dee Morrison of channel 8, Jacobs is quoted as saying:

"The industry has guidelines. We're taught how to handle news, the ethics of good news reporting. When you're talking about just an open society where there's no rules or guidelines, that's when you get into trouble."
"Whether or not accusations on a website are true or false, or a little of both, how does an accused person respond? With reputations and careers at stake, what kind of responsibility is there for those who post on the internet?"
"Hundreds of people, thousands of people could see it. How is an innocent person going to go and reclaim their integrity? There's absolutely no control over it."

While it's certainly possible that a web site could be used to slander people, it's happened often enough in the mainstream media that the log in the eye of most media outlets likely obscures their view while surfing blogs. When AM talk radio repeats slanderous smears devoid of factual content on an almost hourly basis, how can one turn to the Internet and expect a higher standard? When a prosecutor falsely accuses someone of something as bad as sexual assault or possession of child pornography and uses the local paper to spread the false charges (and once it's in print most people choose to believe no matter what facts get aired later, often buried deep inside the paper if at all), what right does the owner of that same paper have to complain about the hypothetical instance in which some other person's reports may contain minor inaccuracies?

I actually think bloggers are forced to higher standards since they often don't have the financial means to "lawyer up" and many aren't hidden beneath layers of legal trickery to protect assets the way a corporation can. In fact, right now a video blogger holds the U.S.A.'s record for jail time in a case for refusing to give up evidence where the FBI would like to know who was at a anti-globalization protest where minor property damage to a police car occurred and yet this case has received a tiny fraction of cases like Judy Miller who refused to give up her confidential sources in the case of the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie (Plame) Wilson in the Scooter Libby case. While many journalists can get legal counsel from their employers, an amateur with a web site is likely not equipped to do and faces a greater amount of legal exposure. In fact, I have had to peel back from stories I would have liked to get into just because I couldn't risk what might happen even though I felt the stories were 100% accurate.

Certainly, there is a possible "disgruntled employee" explanation for Christopher's motives, which he himself tackles on the site, leaving readers to decide for themselves whether they think this is sour grapes based on losing out on a coaching gig or righteous indignation aimed at a corrupt spoils system of good old boys excusing each others' bad behavior. In as much as Save Our Saxons focuses on cronyism and corruption one has to decide for themselves whether the evidence is strong enough to prove the case. But more troubling for me are the allegations regarding emails and instances where Hastings AD Mike Goggins engaged in behavior which at many jobs would have resulted in his immediate dismissal or at least some sort of reprimand or suspension.

In recent history we have witnessed the Columbine massacre and the murder of gay teen Matthew Shepherd. One of the connecting threads in the two events is how our culture treats teens who are different. Our school administrators, teachers and support staff should be working toward creating a positive and nurturing environment that lifts students up. On several occasions Goggins seems to have engaged in behavior that would probably garner a student a suspension, possibly even expulsion. But what disciplinary action has Goggins faced that measures up to the actions that have been recorded in email or by eye witness testimony? A letter in his file? A stern talking to? Ouch, I'm sure that's a pain that lingers...

Goggins' lawyer's contends that "the problem is, you get people who put themselves into the media on the Internet, and they don't have to have that same kind of accountability." From what I see, if the media had been doing their job and allowing people more access to the public soap box, the people who are posting on blogs probably wouldn't have found the audience they've now got. Now the media is trying to put the cow back in the barn and it's likely too late. Considering the way the major media outlets allowed the White House to spin a phony case for war or to paint anyone a traitor who opposed them in doing so, I fail to see where the so-called pros get off criticizing citizens for trying to expose the truth they failed to uncover or even intentionally tried to bury and yet they do so. If only professional journalists followed the real stories instead of trying to belittle anyone without a degree in the field doing it in their spare time, maybe people wouldn't be getting more and more of their information from on-line sources. Maybe if the sponsors of the news didn't get to dictate what appeared during the news, maybe the media would have a leg to stand on in this discussion.

Even if most of the allegations are ultimately unprovable or even false, there is enough to at force a public airing of allegations and evidence which might finally happen now that the media has decided this is news. Yesterday, Tuesday, February 13, was the final day for people to enter the race for school board where 2 seats will be up for grabs and we will likely see some last minute filing given the timing of the media exposure. I don't begin to know where the truth lies in all of this but I know that finally the parents, citizens and taxpayers of the area can make up their own minds. But only because some guy with a web site forced the issue into the open. And the beauty of the Internet is that if Mr. Goggins or anyone else doesn't like what's being said, there's always a little place known as Blogger than will give you a free space on the world wide web to present their own case. That's a better example of equal time than almost anything found in the mainstream media today.