(From Iconoclast_ ADG column below : "Shut up, she explained"! )
Lunch with George Arnold
George Arnold has an interesting commentary in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on the nature and future of news and information in the public sphere. Unlike the editors at the Northwest Arkansas Times, Arnold gets out and chats with folks outside the office on a regular basis and considers their views. He tries to engage in a conversation with citizens instead of the unilateral preaching and navel gazing of certain other editorial and opinion writers. That was evident from his editorial column today, wherein he reflected on the national trend of newspaper downsizing and the rise of alternative information sources.
As Arnold tells it, "I sat down for lunch last week with some residents of Northwest Arkansas who keep close eyes on what's going on around them. They're veterans of community activism, politically engaged. What was on their minds? Judging from many of their questions to me, they are just as concerned about the future of news and newspapers as those of us working in the business. My lunch partners have been watching as the Internet, and blogs especially, redefine the meaning of news, and how news is delivered." At the other local newspapers, these kind of people are labeled extremists and dismissed as having nothing worthwhile to say.
George Arnold has learned what too many of his colleagues in the local press fail to understand or acknowledge. "Gone are the days when those of us in journalism school were trained to be the gatekeepers of information for the rest of the public. As newspaper reporters and editors, we would be deciding what was important enough to pass along to our readers each day. The responsibility was a serious one, and not to be taken lightly."
"The gatekeeper function hardly exists any more," he admits with a sense of caution. "Everybody with a computer has become his own editor, seeking out the news of interest to him and perhaps, like some of those at lunch with me, running a blog or at least contributing their own thoughts to blogs. The gathering of news has gone viral. I willingly admitted to the group that I scanned several must-read blogs in the course of my working day, along with the obligatory review of several newspapers. Without all of them, I'd be at a disadvantage in trying to keep up with what's going on in the world around me".
The mainstream media depend on advertsing revenue from business and government, while bloggers depend more on passionate opinions than paychecks and have less concern about offending the powerful. Arnold also knows "that there is a lot of bogus information on blogs, too. Anybody who refers to blogs has to be his own gatekeeper these days, sorting out the worthwhile from the trash. No easy task, as any newspaper reporter could testify." He should have said as any newspaper readers could testify as well.
It is asking a lot of readers to expect them to think critically, evaluate arguments, challenge evidence, and draw their own conclusions, but we think it is worth it. Bloggers and their readers sometimes get it wrong, but that is usually because government, corporate, and other institutional gatekeeppers (including the hired press) are less forthcoming about their true motives and prevent them having access to all of the relevant information. Bloggers must then speculate on what is missing and decide for themselves what news and views are "fit to print." Readers are not reluctant to let them know whether they agree.
But George, I thought what happened at lunch stayed at lunch
It is asking a lot of readers to expect them to think critically, evaluate arguments, challenge evidence, and draw their own conclusions, but we think it is worth it. Bloggers and their readers sometimes get it wrong, but that is usually because government, corporate, and other institutional gatekeeppers (including the hired press) are less forthcoming about their true motives and prevent them having access to all of the relevant information. Bloggers must then speculate on what is missing and decide for themselves what news and views are "fit to print." Readers are not reluctant to let them know whether they agree.
But George, I thought what happened at lunch stayed at lunch
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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette questions administrative take over of Government Channel
EDITORIALS : Shut up, she explained
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Northwest Edition
Posted on Saturday, May 31, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/227285/
LAYING DOWN fair rules for freespeech can cause government to go bonkers. Such seems to be the case in Fayetteville, where the city administration has managed to shut down some public forums that have long had their place on the city’s Government Channel. A lot of the channel’s programming involves broadcasts of governmental meetings—a worthy undertaking in itself. But the channel has also produced public forums, in which members of the community discuss topics of interest that often involve controversy. After all, it’s Fayetteville, where a comment on the weather can start an argument.
What are some hot topics in Fayetteville these days ? Perhaps the future location of the high school. Or what’s going to become of the Walton Arts Center on Dickson Street.
Those subjects are getting a lot of talk in the papers, over the air, and in countless conversations in coffee shops and on street corners. But you won’t find them being discussed in forums on the Government Channel these days. The city’s would-be propaganda minister, Susan Thomas, has decided otherwise. The public forums have been dismantled.
Ms. Thomas’ actual title is public information officer. Right now she’s busy limiting public information. It seems she agrees with the latest word from the city attorney. Kit Williams has opined that the forums on the Government Channel might be an illegal use of the channel. So Susan Thomas now has a rationale for killing the forums. Or as she put it in pure doublespeak, she didn’t really cancel the forums. She just announced that planning them had been stopped. Another distinction without a difference. Censors have a million of ’em.
The decision bothered the chairman of the city’s Telecommunications Board, which was originally created to put a buffer between the channel and an overzealous city administration. Richard Drake, the board’s chairman, was stunned to hear that the city had stopped planning the forums—without checking with the board. There was no need, according to Susan Thomas. The city council, she said, makes policy decisions on matters like public forums.
Not so fast there, Ms. Thomas. Your decision to stop planning for the forums amounts to setting policy. Which is not your prerogative.
This is just the latest flare-up between the city’s administration and the Government Channel. Earlier, the city fired its cable administrator, Marvin Hilton, for reasons that have yet to be adequately explained. At the latest meeting of the Telecommunications Board, Ms. Thomas presented the administrator’s report that used to be given by Mr. Hilton. And she said she expected to continue giving the report at future meetings. The term for it is power grab.
What’s going on here ? Why the city administrator’s sudden interest in programming on the Government Channel ? And why, after all these years, are the public forums on the channel deemed illegal ? These issue forums have long been done remarkably well. They’re balanced. Every side is heard.
One suggestion has been to move the forums to the community access channel. That channel would probably do a good job on the forums. But there’s no requirement on the community access channel that all sides be heard. A producer could decide to leave out one or more of the sides. That would be a step down from the practice long used by the Government Channel.
The bigger concern is that the administration’s latest intrusions open the door to further meddling in programming on the Government Channel. Some future administration might be inclined to tamper with the policies even more. The programming could become just what it was designed not to be: a tool to put the current administration in the most favorable light.
Nancy Allen, an alderman, wants the city council to look into this flap over the Government Channel. It’s a good idea. Maybe the city council can get to the bottom of the administration’s growing interest in what can and cannot be said in public forums on the channel.
We’d especially like to hear something unequivocal from Dan Coody, the mayor. He’s notoriously touchy about public information that doesn’t come out the way he thinks it should. What’s his role in this flap ? Does he support undermining the independence of the Telecommunications Board ? And Susan Thomas’ fiddling with programming ? Good questions. Answers are needed.
The board also deserves to know where it stands with this administration. Does the board set policy for the Government Channel, or is the board just there to do the bidding of others—in this case, the city administration ?
The public forums on the Government Channel have been a good source of information about various topics of community interest. To undermine that success—for whatever reason—is a mistake. The city council needs to get to the bottom of this. Soon. Before silence becomes standard operating procedure. Even in once free-speaking Fayetteville.
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On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Jim Bemis <nputjim@gmail.com> wrote:
More rude facts from the Iconoclast, plus kick-ass quote from Richard., TBoard chair. See also, "Through the Looking Glass Darkly" below.
Ah, we miss the clarion tones of the Iconoclast.... to rid us of this current folly!
Aubrey's uploaded another video of the more glorious days. Keep'em coming, Aubrey.
Why not a replay of this one (below) on your blog, Richard or the one borrowed from Alice?. All of these will make a lot of folks re-think (doublethink?) the Board's current savaging of the Ordinance.
Jim
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Minister of Information Control
Chair Richard Drake has sent a letter on behalf of the Fayetteville Telecommunications Board to Mayor Coody and the City Council. It appears to be a finding of fact and a complaint that two issue forums that had already been approved for production on the Fayetteville Government Channel were "unceremoniously yanked from the planning stages" and vetoed by Dr. Susan Thomas, PhD, the mayor's public relations and policy advisor. At its June meeting, the Board voted unanimously to urge the City Council "to allow these two forums to take place."
One of the issue forums dealt with the future of Fayetteville High School, and the other was to deal with the future of the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville. Both are timely issues of public concern, and both were requested by Alderman Nancy Allen in accordance with the existing Government Channel policies adopted by the City Council in 2006.
Ignoring the city policy and acting on the assumed authority of the Mayor to do whatever he wants regardless of law and policy, Dr. Thomas canceled both of the programs requested by Alderman Allen. Is Mayor Coody afraid that these public forums might limit his ribbon cutting ceremony replays to showing only once a day? Is he afraid that someone might inquire about why he has done nothing about the almost certain moving of the Walton Arts Center to Benton County? Is it just a petty grudge against Alderman Allen who asked him to explain the sewer plant debacle?
I suppose it doesn't matter. The Telecommunications Board has no power. The cable administrator was fired and has not been replaced. If the Council took action on the policy, the Mayor would veto it and Gray-Thiel-Rhoads would vote to sustain. Dr. Thomas will not be reprimanded. And we will still get to see Dan's press conferences and self-promotions on the Government Channel every day.
Coody has not been held accountable for much worse transgressions of the public trust, so what's one more insult to the public?
Posted by Jonah at Friday, June 27, 2008
The City's Idea of Public Information
An informed public can be inconvenient for those in power. When the people have the facts, keep a close eye on the actions of public officials, and express their concerns or make suggestions, well, it is a democratic distraction. The most recent suggestion for cutting city expenses reflects the administration's conception of public information as a controlled one-way process.
In a late coming email yesterday, Susan Thomas, Mayor Coody's public information and policy adviser, laid out the administration's proposal to gut the community's unique Public, Education, and Government cable system in the name of efficiency. Fewer meetings of public boards and commissions will be covered on the government channel, and it will likely kill that pesky community access television that thinks it's about freedom of expression.
There might be good reasons to replace some of the city employees involved, but it would be difficult to make a case that the function is less important to citizens than funding out-of-state travel by administrators. It appears to be more of an excuse to curtail the ability of citizens to keep an eye on public meetings and to express their views on community access cable. You'll recall that the last cost savings measure was to abolish transcripts of meetings of the City Council and Planning Commission, and timely website updates to the council agenda appear to be a thing of the past.
Adding insult to injury, Thomas says the administration will add one loyal full-time public information coordinator position to feed the people the government's positions in a monthly e-newsletter and updates on the wastewater cost overruns and street bond program. They want to be able to tell you what they want you to know, but they can do without having you knowing what they're really doing or letting them know what you think. When you do speak up, they'll say you're misinformed and don't know what you're talking about. I mean even more than they do already.
There are cuts to be made and programs to be abolished, but eliminating an informed citizenry should not be among them.
Posted by Jonah at Thursday, November 15, 2007
Government Channel Changers
One of the comments posted yesterday touched on the firing of City Cable Administrator Marvin Hilton and suggested that Mayor Coody could now use the Government Channel as "a 24 hour propaganda machine." Somehow I doubt that, but there does seem to be considerable email chatter about recent events at the PEG Center down at Rock 'n' Block.
Telecommunication Board Chairman Richard Drake maintains an interesting blog called Street Jazz and has been all over this topic for the last few days. He knows as much or more about such things as anyone except those Media Mandarins on the city payroll, so his comments will be of great interest to people who have great interest in such things. Drake also predicts that the Telecommunication Board meeting this Thursday will be an interesting one. Somehow I doubt that, too.
I hope that they get it all worked out and that we will continue to have the state's best cable line-up of public access, educational, and government channel coverage.
Posted by Jonah at Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Through the Looking Glass Darkly
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that’s all.”
-- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Richard Drake, Chairman of the Fayetteville Telecommunications Board, appeared to be upset during last night's meeting about partisan political agendas influencing informational programming on the city's Government Channel 16. In the past, the channel has carried balanced programs with citizens discussing public policy issues such as Road Impact Fees and the Freedom of Information Act. Nevermore, it now seems.Mr. Drake and others expressed concern that Dr. Susan Thomas, Ph.D., Mayor Dan Coody's Public Relations and Policy Advisor, had ignored existing city policy regarding the Government Channel and had canceled two citizen-initiated issue forums about the location of Fayetteville High School and the future of the Walton Arts Center.
“So we’ve actually canceled these without waiting for any sort of policy decision from the Telecom Board?” Drake asked Thomas.
No, Dr. Thomas replied, the administration had not canceled the programs, it had only suspended planning them, and any future consideration of such illegal issue forums had also been stopped immediately.
Oh.
Posted by Jonah at Friday, May 23, 2008
Cable Imbroglio or Coody Implosion?
There were signs during last week's City Council meeting that something was not quite right. Planning Director Tim Conklin, a very competent and highly regarded city employee, is resigning to take a job in Springfield, Missouri. The City Council passed a Resolution of gratitude for Conklin's 15 years of service, then Mayor Coody announced that Conklin's position would not be filled until next year, dumping his responsibilities on the other employees. Quite a slap at the staff just honored by the Council in a 7-0 vote, then later in the same meeting he berated the Council for not respecting the staff and adding two burdensome weeks to the time it would take to fill a vacant position. Bizarre or Bipolar?
This week it got worse. No one has seen the Mayor at City Hall, and perhaps for good reason. Dr. Susan Thomas, Ph.D., Public Relations and Policy Adviser, has usurped all power granted to the Telecommunications Board by ordinance and declared it merely advisory. She decided to unilaterally draft new regulations. She has also suspended all public affairs forums on the Government Channel and decreed that even previously recorded and shown forums cannot be replayed. All of this comes on the heels of her firing the city's long-time Cable Administrator and having him removed by the police.
Then, yesterday, Dr. Susan Thomas Ph.D., Public Relations, Policy Adviser, and Self-Appointed Cable Czar, fired off a memo to Mayor Coody declaring that "the conflict of opinion between me and certain member of the Telecom Board in this matter has become untenable and has created a negative working environment in which I am no longer willing to participate." Big surprise. She asked the Mayor to relieve her of responsibility for the FUBAR situation.
It gets even more weird. If you have forgotten Dan Coody's bold statement before the Fayetteville City Council on September 19, 2000, that control of the Government Channel should be by the Telecom Board and not the Council and that there should be more citizen debates and not less, Richard Drake has that and more on his Street Jazz blog today. Now in power, Coody wants his office to control everything and squelch all public debate in that forum. City Attorney Kit Williams has also sent Mayor Coody a memo supporting that new position and repudiating as unwise the stance taken by candidate Coody when he ran for office.
It would still be okay under Coody's new scheme for Coody, himself, to use the Government Channel to present one-sided "educational" programs like the campaign to increase the sales tax or his press puffery of whatever he wants to brag on himself about endlessly. It would not be okay for citizens to request and present a balanced discussion of proposed impact fees or even proposed regulations of the Government Channel. The government will tell you anything they want you to know.
Although I had a couple of earlier blog entries about this topic, I haven't followed it closely and really don't know much about all of this stuff, so chime in if you have a better handle on what's going on here. I do think it looks like the end times for this administration. It seems to be so riddled with contradictory positions that the mayor has lost the public trust. Coody should be very glad that Scott McClellan didn't work for him. The rest of us can be glad that there are 217 days left in this year.
This week it got worse. No one has seen the Mayor at City Hall, and perhaps for good reason. Dr. Susan Thomas, Ph.D., Public Relations and Policy Adviser, has usurped all power granted to the Telecommunications Board by ordinance and declared it merely advisory. She decided to unilaterally draft new regulations. She has also suspended all public affairs forums on the Government Channel and decreed that even previously recorded and shown forums cannot be replayed. All of this comes on the heels of her firing the city's long-time Cable Administrator and having him removed by the police.
Then, yesterday, Dr. Susan Thomas Ph.D., Public Relations, Policy Adviser, and Self-Appointed Cable Czar, fired off a memo to Mayor Coody declaring that "the conflict of opinion between me and certain member of the Telecom Board in this matter has become untenable and has created a negative working environment in which I am no longer willing to participate." Big surprise. She asked the Mayor to relieve her of responsibility for the FUBAR situation.
It gets even more weird. If you have forgotten Dan Coody's bold statement before the Fayetteville City Council on September 19, 2000, that control of the Government Channel should be by the Telecom Board and not the Council and that there should be more citizen debates and not less, Richard Drake has that and more on his Street Jazz blog today. Now in power, Coody wants his office to control everything and squelch all public debate in that forum. City Attorney Kit Williams has also sent Mayor Coody a memo supporting that new position and repudiating as unwise the stance taken by candidate Coody when he ran for office.
It would still be okay under Coody's new scheme for Coody, himself, to use the Government Channel to present one-sided "educational" programs like the campaign to increase the sales tax or his press puffery of whatever he wants to brag on himself about endlessly. It would not be okay for citizens to request and present a balanced discussion of proposed impact fees or even proposed regulations of the Government Channel. The government will tell you anything they want you to know.
Although I had a couple of earlier blog entries about this topic, I haven't followed it closely and really don't know much about all of this stuff, so chime in if you have a better handle on what's going on here. I do think it looks like the end times for this administration. It seems to be so riddled with contradictory positions that the mayor has lost the public trust. Coody should be very glad that Scott McClellan didn't work for him. The rest of us can be glad that there are 217 days left in this year.
Posted by Jonah at Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Even the Democrat-Gazette Gets It
"What’s going on here? Why the city administrator’s sudden interest in programming on the Government Channel? And why, after all these years, are the public forums on the channel deemed illegal? These issue forums have long been done remarkably well. They’re balanced. Every side is heard. ...
"The bigger concern is that the administration’s latest intrusions open the door to further meddling in programming on the Government Channel. Some future administration might be inclined to tamper with the policies even more. The programming could become just what it was designed not to be: a tool to put the current administration in the most favorable light. ...
"We’d especially like to hear something unequivocal from Dan Coody, the mayor. He’s notoriously touchy about public information that doesn’t come out the way he thinks it should. What’s his role in this flap? Does he support undermining the independence of the Telecommunications Board? And Susan Thomas’ fiddling with programming? Good questions. Answers are needed. ...
"The public forums on the Government Channel have been a good source of information about various topics of community interest. To undermine that success—for whatever reason—is a mistake. The city council needs to get to the bottom of this. Soon. Before silence becomes standard operating procedure. Even in once free-speaking Fayetteville."
Editorial, "Shut Up, She Explained," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Fair and Balanced
It seems that most of the discussion about Fayetteville's Government Channel has been about the unilateral decision of Dr. Susan Thomas, Ph.D. to suspend the production and cablecasting of forums on local issues of public concern. That edict applied to all forums requested by elected Aldermen as well as private citizens. City Attorney Kit Williams is quoted in the Northwest Arkansas Times as saying the problem is that any forums on the Government Channel programming should be "fair and balanced," but that government is prohibited from deciding what or who is fair and balanced. Baloney. The Fairness Doctrine of the FCC, from 1949 until abolished under Ronald Reagan, said private broadcasters had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The Commission also held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. The government made the call as to whether they did so.
Williams also said something else very interesting. He said the Government Channel should "just be a purveyor of unvarnished information, just what the government is doing, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent." Right. What that does not address is who will be the designated Decider of what information is offered up. Who would decide to replay an excerpt of a city council meeting from more than a year ago? What objective standard would suggest that it was now in demand or even of current interest?
Would a Mayor dominate the Government Channel then try to claim that major financial problems are due to a "failure to communicate"? Would a Mayor or his Public Relations Adviser schedule a replay of events which made him look like an idiot?
Would they load up programming to support elections on taxes they wanted to raise and starve discussions about city ballot issues they opposed? Who, for example, would hog all the space on the City Website for one side of the issue and run a saturation schedule of 30 programs in the two days before the September 2006 sales tax election to "educate" the voters? Or, who would decide that in the two days before the April 2007 election on road impact fees, which the Mayor opposed, to program only three showings of a balanced forum requested by an alderman to present and discuss both sides of the issue?
The Telecommunications Board has the responsibility to recommend a new Government Channel Policy for consideration by the City Council. Can it craft a policy to guard against an administration that would abuse that public resource for blatant political purposes? Would the Council approve it? Would the Mayor veto it?
[Click on schedule to enlarge]
All Coody, All the Time
THE NEW CITY ORDER
GOVERNMENT CHANNEL
PROGRAM GUIDE
June 22-28, 2008
FEATURING AN EXCITING LINE-UP OF:
8 Repeats of Coody's Press Conference on Bottled Water
6 Repeats of Coody’s Sewer Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
1 Repeat of City Council Meeting: June 17
0 Citizen Forums on Issues of Public Concern
Set your TiVo now! Look for the updated program guide in the Cable Administration section on the city's lame website, but don’t bother looking for Telecommunications Board Policies. Contact Dr. Susan Thomas PhD, Public Relations, Policy, and Government Channel Adviser at sthomas@ci.fayetteville.ar.us
SUNDAY, June 22
11:15 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
SUNDAY, June 22
11:15 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
4:30 p.m. City Council Meeting: June 17
MONDAY, June 23
8:30 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
9:00 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
8:30 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
9:00 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
TUESDAY, June 24
8:30 a.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
1:00 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
8:30 a.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
1:00 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
WEDNESDAY, June 25
2:30 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
3:30 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
10:15 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
THURSDAY, June 26
3:15 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
11:30 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
FRIDAY, June 27
8:30 a.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
9:00 a.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
9:45 p.m. Waste Water Treatment Plant Ribbon Cutting
SATURDAY, June 28
3:00 p.m. Mayor Coody's Press Conference On Bottled Water
Minister of Information Control
Chair Richard Drake has sent a letter on behalf of the Fayetteville Telecommunications Board to Mayor Coody and the City Council. It appears to be a finding of fact and a complaint that two issue forums that had already been approved for production on the Fayetteville Government Channel were "unceremoniously yanked from the planning stages" and vetoed by Dr. Susan Thomas, PhD, the mayor's public relations and policy advisor. At its June meeting, the Board voted unanimously to urge the City Council "to allow these two forums to take place."
One of the issue forums dealt with the future of Fayetteville High School, and the other was to deal with the future of the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville. Both are timely issues of public concern, and both were requested by Alderman Nancy Allen in accordance with the existing Government Channel policies adopted by the City Council in 2006.
Ignoring the city policy and acting on the assumed authority of the Mayor to do whatever he wants regardless of law and policy, Dr. Thomas canceled both of the programs requested by Alderman Allen. Is Mayor Coody afraid that these public forums might limit his ribbon cutting ceremony replays to showing only once a day? Is he afraid that someone might inquire about why he has done nothing about the almost certain moving of the Walton Arts Center to Benton County? Is it just a petty grudge against Alderman Allen who asked him to explain the sewer plant debacle?
I suppose it doesn't matter. The Telecommunications Board has no power. The cable administrator was fired and has not been replaced. If the Council took action on the policy, the Mayor would veto it and Gray-Thiel-Rhoads would vote to sustain. Dr. Thomas will not be reprimanded. And we will still get to see Dan's press conferences and self-promotions on the Government Channel every day.
Coody has not been held accountable for much worse transgressions of the public trust, so what's one more insult to the public?
Posted by Jonah at Friday, June 27, 2008
Minister of Information Control
Posted by Jonah at Friday, June 27, 2008
Misfeasance or Media Manipulation?
The Fayetteville City Council this week abdicated any role in the Government Channel operations. In identical 4-3 votes, Adella Gray, Brenda Thiel, Robert Rhoads, and Bobby Ferrell voted against a resolution asking the Coody administration to follow the existing ordinance setting city policy and against enforcing that policy that allows an alderman to request production of a forum on issues of public concern. They cared not that one of Coody's assistants vetoed the alderman's legitimate request nor that the Telecommunications Board objected to that arbitrary action.
Dan Coody now has unfettered control to decide what appears on the Government Channel 16 -- as well as the power to prevent programs from being on the regular cablecast. While the Mayor kept questioning who would pay for production of a public forum requested by an alderman, he didn't have any problems with or explanations of who paid for producing his numerous press conferences and ribbon-cutting publicity stunts. Coody also complained that producing a forum would put a strain on the reduced staff of the Government Channel -- caused by his firing the professional Cable Administrator and replacing him with his public relations advisor -- that is somehow greater than or different from taping and showing the mayor talking about whatever he did yesterday.
Events last weekend provide a good example of what to expect. Coody's Government Channel programmers scheduled replays of the regular monthly Ward 4 Meeting for just after midnight on Saturday night and again at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, not exactly Prime Time even on the Government Channel. Then, mysteriously, the Government Channel went off the air from about 9:00 p.m. on Saturday night until sometime Sunday afternoon. This "accidental glitch" did not affect the showing of any of Coody's press conferences or ribbon-cuttings. It did prevent two showings of the most recent Ward 4 Meeting of citizens with their Aldermen, Shirley Lucas and Lioneld Jordan, to discuss the benefits of joining the Regional Mobility Authority, proposals by developers, and other issues of concern to local residents.
Probably just a coincidence.
Let's Keep a Good Thing Off the Channel
Dan Coody's effort to keep citizen issue forums from the Government Channel has been effective. After firing the City Cable Administrator then assigning public relations assistant Dr. Susan Thomas, Ph.D. to take control of programming and jerking issue forums requested by an Alderman, the administration has effectively guided the Telecommunication Board toward its desired goal of more Coody publicity and less citizen commentary.
Not everyone has fallen for their game nor fallen into line. One of the Telecom Board's subcommittees is struggling to resist the mayor's scheme by proposing a revised policy to continue the forums, but that brave effort is unlikely to make much difference. It has to be approved by the full board, which seems accommodating to the administration's demands, then it goes before the City Council, where the mayor has three sure votes and veto power. Even if the new policy were to be implemented, it is unlikely that any citizen forums could be produced and aired before the November election, and that appears to be Coody's primary concern.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has called a censor a censor. "The board has been in an uproar for months now—ever since Susan Thomas, the unelected information czar of Fayetteville, killed one of the best and most popular features on the Government Channel, or at least sent it into a deep coma. We’re talking about the forums devoted to topics of public interest in town. Ms. Thomas called a halt to those forums after the city attorney—Kit Williams—wondered out loud about their possibly being unfair to somebody or other. The problems weren’t constitutional or legal, he added. But his reservations were enough for Ms. Thomas, whose formal job title at City Hall is public information officer. In this case, she’s acted to squelch public information by shutting down the forums. This is happening in Fayetteville—a city proud of its reputation for vigorous debate."
Like Coody's specious claims about broken bones on the square and a wave of citizen complaints about his opponents' yard signs, the editorial said, "Ms. Thomas’ worries that the forums might be unfair never seemed well grounded in fact. Quite the contrary. For years, going back at least to 1992, these shows have provided worthwhile information on topics of interest to local residents. There haven’t been any significant complaints about the forums, which present all sides of an issue. What could be more fair than that? And what were the subjects of the two pending forums that were cancelled by Ms. Thomas? Why, the future location of Fayetteville High School and possibly moving the Walton Arts Center out of town—two of the hottest local issues around. How can limiting discussion of them help inform the public? Answer: It can’t—and it shouldn’t be allowed to. Not in the free republic of Fayetteville."
The City Council cannot fire Dr. Thomas . The "city administration’s unelected minister of propaganda" answers only to Mayor Coody, who is quite pleased that she is following orders without complaint and has taken most of the heat for his designs. If Fayetteville citizens want a return to open government, they will have to fire Dan Coody.
Posted by Jonah at Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The Resistance Struggles On
If you care about Fayetteville's Government Channel, there will be a discussion of the most recent suggested policy for such programming at the Telecom Board meeting today: Cox Channel 16, at 5:30 in Room 219 City Hall. You'll also be able to call in or send an email. (The phone number and email address should be on the screen or available at 444-3436.)
The Northwest Arkansas Times is against trying to continue public forums on the Government Channel, and they don't care much for the proposed requirements for fairness, preferring to let our Mayor control and dominate the programming between now and November 4th. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has a more thoughtful analysis of the controversy.
Maybe things will be resolved after the election.
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