Windy Sailing Column Shows Poor Taste

Imagine you own a chain of small-town newspapers. Times are tough, advertising revenues fall, and you are forced to fire half the staff. Your internal memos on the matter “mourn” the loss of “family.”

But soon enough, a particularly lovely day in December dawns (remember, it’s Florida). You decide to “take a vacation day” (!) from your labors and head over to the yacht club where you untie your sloop for a sail around the harbor.

Question: Do you write a column about it?
Answer: Yes, if you are Derek Dunn-Rankin.

Comment: Enjoying his sail under “a milk-blue sky” is one thing. Writing about what is often regarded as an elitist activity is simply rubbing the staff’s nose in the disparity between Dunn-Rankin’s holiday and theirs.

Perhaps feeling a twinge of conscience about spending 20 inches of ink waxing poetic about his personal pursuit of happiness under sail, the company patriarch opines: “If I could get just a few thousand of the millions shoveling driveway snow to spend a few minutes aboard, we would once more have a shortage of houses for sale.”

Oh my! One tack out of the yacht club and consumers would be back on board! Having a full-time job that pays more than collecting aluminum cans and the means to qualify for a mortgage aren't part of the Dunn-Rankin sailing-to-economic-recovery plan.

If, after considering how many of his laid-off staff had to forgo yacht club memberships this year, Dunn-Rankin still decides to publish his lyric to leisure, then he should at least send the column to a decent copy editor. A “tiller arm” and “sheet line” are both silly redundancies. (A tiller is an arm and a sheet is a line, so there’s no need for the pompous inclusion of the extra noun disguised as an adjective.) He describes the boat’s “heel to the wind,” giving a backwards description of what happens when wind moves over sail. (By sailing left or right of the wind’s head-on direction, a sail produces different wind pressures on the front and back of its air-foil shape. The differential propels the boat forward. In the process, the boat heels away from, or “off,” the wind source, not into it.) But these are minor points.

The bigger point is Dunn-Rankin left his better judgment on the dock when he decided to tell his former employees and former advertisers how much fun he’s having, and suggest that all their problems would be solved if they'd only take a little sail, just like he does.

Plagiarism Operates at Fawcett Hospital

There's a new way to treat heartburn in our little town. Local physician Alvaro Bada says this about it: This procedure can significantly improve quality of life for our patients. Many reflux patients are unable to drink carbonated beverages, caffeine or eat rich foods or fruit without triggering reflux.

Strangely enough, Dr. William E. Kelly Jr. at Henrico (Virginia) Doctors' Hospital, describes the same procedure this way: EsophyX can signficantly improve quality of life for our patients. Many reflux patients are unable to drink carbonated beverages, caffeine or eat rich foods or fruit without triggering reflux.

And amazingly, Dr. Paul Cirangle of San Francisco explains the procedure like this: EsophyX can signficantly improve quality of life for our patients. Many reflux patients are unable to drink carbonated beverages, caffeine or eat rich foods or fruit without triggering reflux.

Back in our town, Bada's partner, Domingo Galliano, adds to the discussion: Recent studies of EsophyX have shown that the procedure can reduce patients' dependence on medications with 80 percent of patients remaining symptom free after two years and experiencing a dramatic improvement in their quality of life. We are very excited to be able to offer our patiewnts the same incredible benefits with minimal risk.

But Kelley in Virginia "said" it first, back on June 23: Recent studies of EsophyX have shown that the procedure can reduce patients' dependence on meedications with 80 perc ent of patients remaining symptom free after two years and experiencing a dramatic improvement in their quality of life. We are very excited to be able to offer our patiewnts the same incredible benefits with minimal risk.

Even the San Francisco doctor said it more than a month before the local guys got around to saying it: Recent studies of EsophyX have shown that the procedure can reduce patients' dependence on meedications with 80 perc ent of patients remaining symptom free after two years and experiencing a dramatic improvement in their quality of life. We are very excited to be able to offer our patiewnts the same incredible benefits with minimal risk.

There's quite a bit more, but you get the picture.

So, what's so bad about this obvious marketeering? Michelle Ritter, the local writer, put her name on the story and failed to use quotes or attributions; doing so tells Charlotte Sun newspaper readers she wrote it. That's clearly a lie for which there is a specific name: plagiarism. But the plagiarist doesn't sully only her own reputation; she draws others into the journalistic muck.


Ritter puts prefabricated quotes into the mouths of the local doctors, as if they had really said those things.

And Feeling Fit editor Jennifer Wadsworth publishes the fake as a news feature, probably unaware that Ritter is now a three-time winner in the 2008 plagiarism scorecard.

All in all, about a full third of the wordage Ritter claims as her own has a common source with the public relations writers for hospitals in Virginia and California. Old Word Wolf suspects a manufacturer's brochure or news release. At least the California and Virginia practitioners distributed generic notices, possessing an ethical compass that steered them away from claiming the words and work of others as their personal productions.

In other medical news, the Lake Placid Journal's edition of Feeling Fit wants readers to recognize the herb known as St. John's Wort. Here is the identification.

Write to Fit

In the old days, stories too long for the space allotted were cut from the bottom , giving rise to the tradition that reporters organize information in what came to be known as the inverted pyramid. Give the important stuff first (the 5-W lede), with details to follow. Today's headline on the Dear Abby column is an perfect example. The word "etiquette" is too long for the space. Cut off the end, all those repetitive "t's," and voila! a fit!

Five Ways to Spot Fake News

Congratulations to Sun Newspaper’s business editor, Terry O’Connor. Relatively new to the staff, he makes a front-page splash this morning with a publicity agent’s dream. He interviews a local construction company president, the president’s son, and a county parks director in order to describe – in glowing terms – the firm that built Sun Coast Media Group’s (O'Connor's boss) own addition to its telephone-company building in Murdock.

Unfortunately, it’s all fake news. As the reader swims through a sea of up-beat, uncritical praise for this sterling firm, she senses the editorial lard – a story greased with quotes that broadly support the paper publisher’s own policy of reporting whenever possible that the economic water glass is half full. It’s fake news, from start to finish. So, how does a critical reader spot fake news?

The first step is to look for the news nugget. If readers can’t find genuine news, usually near the top of the story, then all the words that follow may well be ersatz news. In this case, the not-news is presented as the grizzled construction mogul advising President-elect Barack Obama to “take care of our veterans [ ... give] them an affordable house.”

It’s patriotism. It’s history. It’s good intentions. It’s a WWII vet’s recasting of the past as a viable future. But news? No – maybe a sympathetic set-up for the soft feature that's about to swallow the news hole – but definitely not news. (If it were a real news story, O’Connor might somewhere have compared the number of returning WWII vets -- 16 million -- with 2.3 million troops since the 1991 Gulf war, and he might have pointed to the fallacy of wishful thinking as economic stimulus.) A real news hook might be that the county last week awarded its 25th contract to the company, or that the firm has merged or acquired or changed in some way. None of this is in evidence.

The second step is to look for hard facts, data, and numbers. Not too far down, O’Connor reports the company president says his firm's gross revenues declined from about $20 million two years ago to about $10 million this year. Gross revenues are a suitably vague measure of a privately held business. What the company’s profits actually are relative to gross sales is “company business [that] stays in the company,” as the patriarch puts it. O’Connor fails to note if this construction firm is the only one in town (which his feature makes it sounds like), or if similar firms are experiencing similar 50-percent declines. It’s one thing to put a rosy glow on the recession with profits generated by a $10 million base. It’s quite another thing to survive with two trucks and a Rolodex. The reporter fails to compare this firm's situation with any of the two or three major developers who have gone bankrupt or pulled out of major local projects. His hed says the contractor is "built to handle adversity," but nothing in the story supports this claim -- except that it thrives on government contracts: See Step Five, below.

The third step is to look for a cross section of what folks say about the “news.” The writer rounded up a county parks director (to give high praise for the nice construction company), a banker who needed a new building (to give high praise for the nice construction company) and the company president’s son (to give high praise for the nice construction company his dad owns and which has written him a paycheck since he was 10 years old).

The fourth step is to beware of “chamber of commerce” press release statements woven into the text. O’Connor manages to get the man who built his own boss's new building to say “Charlotte County is one of the finest places in Florida situated between two huge growing metro areas.” It probably didn’t take too much prompting to get him to add, “Now more than ever, it’s a very affordable community. It’s beautiful and you’re not in the rat race.”

The fifth step is to look for the reporter’s dig. This one didn’t dig; he surfed. He used the construction firm’s Web site and copied its list of projects. Some are generous and big-hearted sounding: “support areas for Charlotte County Homeless Coalition,” and a safe house expansion for the homeless. What the reporter fails to report is the millions made seem to stem mostly from local-government funded construction. Tax revenue funds this firm’s profits – and the head of that firm is urging the next president of the United States to build bridges and homes for returning vets.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with government construction. OWW is a big liberal when it comes to homeless shelters, county parks, city marinas, and air-conditioned “justice centers.” She just wishes the reporter had made it clear this featured contractor’s revenue stream flows directly from taxpayer.

There’s no evidence of digging when a reporter fails to report on lawsuits, liens, layoffs, settlements, or even one less-than-perfectly satisfied client. There’s no evidence of digging when the reporter fails to investigate exactly what it was that happened in Mississippi to make the contractor decide he was “spread too thin.” There’s no evidence of digging when readers are given no hint of interests overlapping, country and yacht clubs in common, or mutual business interests between publisher and the featured gentleman of the day.

So what happened here? A promising new reporter, fast promoted to business editor, gets roped into his publisher’s dilemma. As a result, readers are asking if the cash-strapped, layoff-prone newspaper has had to exchange a little free, uncritical publicity -- and a reporter's soul -- for a contractor’s debt.

Find 10 Things Wrong ...

It was a game page in Highlights for Children: Find 10 Things Wrong With This Picture. Maybe that's what those fun-loving Charlotte Sun editors have in mind. Here's three to get you started on today's paper:

Front page: The headline writer tells readers "Community leaders see local economic recovery peaking through the clouds."

Front page: A reprint from Fort Myers News-Press (implying that two copy desks read it? ) reports a stolen elf from a holiday lawn display. The mock drama of the mini-featurette is lost the moment the writer reports the scene was "grizzly." That's supposed to be grisly.

At the national roundup page: An event in Dale City, Prince William County (Virginia), is placed under a Washington, D.C., header. Even a sleepy copy editor should instantly recognize that D.C. doesn't have counties.

The rest of the 10 Things Wrong are scattered throughout the paper in all the usual spots: cutlines, overlines, the home-grown editorial, and in-house ads. Happy hunting!

Desperately Seeking Cute Trumps Accuracy

Since the headline doesn't refer to anyone in the story -- no one expresses desperation in this light rewrite of a prepared city council agenda -- and since the headline doesn't fulfill the requirements of a grammatical English sentence, and since it misprepresents the story, readers can consider themselves officially irrelevant. It's the copy desk's need to be cute that counts. It's the desk's need to show she/he has seen a 23-year-old grade B movie that matters. That's just plain desperate.

Gondo "Columnist" Pays for His Material

Back in high school, busy students logged onto www. free-essays dot com to download five or ten pages analyzing theme, conflict and imagery in The Scarlet Letter or "A Rose for Emily." When they got to college, those same busy, busy students hooked up with www. college-papers dot com. For eight or ten dollars a page, they could put their own names on “nonplagiarized essays,” complete with footnotes and bibliographies on such topics as “Comparative Motifs in The Pearl Poet and Sir Gawain,” or “Microeconomic Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of NAFTA,” and “The Psycho-Social Impacts of Gay Adoption.” Now, thrust into the real world of work, what’s a busy, busy high-school-valedictorian-college-grad-cum-laude now a very busy, busy CPA to do when he needs a nicely written newspaper column?

An Oak Harbor, Wash., firm, Mostad and Christensen Inc., comes to the rescue! For a tad less than $500 a year, the nice folks there e-mail a monthly assortment of tax and financial articles, edited to about 300 words and suitable for “publishing in local newspapers or community publications under your firm’s name,” according to the company’s Web-sales site.

And, my goodness! How well this system serves all involved – as long as you don’t count the reader – is evident right here in today's Gondolier, business page, front and center. D. Grady Hough Jr., who earns his living as a CPA in Venice gets “business columnist” status to publish the 300 words he bought last month from Mostad and Christensen. His purchase price includes the privilege of saying the essay is his own work, even though it isn’t.

Apart from the bleak ethics of lying about whether you wrote something – called plagiarism except when semi-winked at by contractual arrangements between consenting adults – this article requires the newspaper’s entire staff of writers, editors, and publishers turn a blind eye to the deception it works on their community of readers. Most newspapers, when running this sort of drek, put a box around it and display the words “paid advertisement” in a place easily discerned by readers who like their business news gathered and presented by trained journalists who make at least a pretense of objectivity.

As for the CPA: He’s in a field that requires a high level of trust. Old Word Wolf can’t trust him to admit where he got his “news” or acknowledge that he didn’t research it, write it, or check its accuracy. And we're supposed to trust him with our taxes?

On a jollier note ...



Cutline: Trees bring season joy

So that's why the holiday is happy!

Half a Name Isn't the Whole Story

There wan't enough room in the Charlotte Sun's state-roundup page to give the city's whole name, so half would have to do. The result: readers are briefly led to believe that an institution of higher learning in Pennsylvania has gone into the fowl-ordinance business.

Local hed style: York, Louis, Barbara, and Paul.


Back at the front page, a local writer
announces that "Today the U.S. Census released the first set of
three-year American Community Survey data ..."

The problem is, the data came out yesterday. Sun readers are accustomed to getting their news "whenever." The shock of reading -- at 7:30 a.m., no less -- what happened today was too much for Old Word Wolf.

Doing Too Much With Too Little

The DeSoto Sun's front page designers couldn't decide exactly what the story says (there's actually a good reason for that -- see next graf), so they opted to play it both ways:

Illegal immigration is down
Refugees keep on coming.

We can hear it now: "They'll figure it out once they read the story."

Uhm, no. We can't figure it out once we read the story. The opus opens with lots of stuff about illegal immigrants -- the news hook is 17 Cubans came ashore last month, beaching on an island at the fringes of the newspaper's circulation area. The problem is, Cubans aren't illegal immigrants. And the headline about "refugees" seems to be taken from the table, lifted from a Web-aggregator's data showing the top five countries that have been sending refugees -- all perfectly legal arrivals -- in the last decade.

To add to the confusion, the refer trailing the story announces "Lee County opts not to participate in 287 (g) program" Readers expecting to solve the mystery of what exactly a 287 (g) is turn eagerly to page 4.

No where in the inside story is a 287 (g) program defined or explained. The cops complain about it, calling it unflattering names. Administrators complain about it, saying it doesn't work. Officials, some 20 inches into the story, call it a "seminal problem," whatever that is. But no where, no where, no where can the reader learn what the heck a 287 (g) is.

Nice work, guys. Maybe if writers asked someone to actually read their stories before they landed on the front page, Sun readers wouldn't be quite so busy wondering if their $200 subscriptions are worth renewing.

And, a lot of papers have piled up since OWW was away....

Just skimming the top of the stack: back on November 30, Susan Hoffman went to the dog show and got the name of every champion, owner and city. But Samantha Williamson, sent to cover actual children, couldn't muster more than a "This little girl..." and "This little boy..." for the"Catch and Release Fun at Lake Katherine" cutlines. The dogs have names -- they're champions. The kids, well, never mind.

Where There's Smoke, There's Anonymous Sources

Anonymous sources are wonderful. No names to spell correctly, no towns or occupations to identify. Every quote is a gem of relevance that fully supports the reporter's prepackaged premise, lede.

Such is the case with today's Big Story (not): "Smoke Out ... a day to help smokers quit" by Susan Hoffman. But even before the array of "one woman said" bits, Hoffman seems to making it up, from the very start.

Smokers huddle close to the walls of a building, or sit together under a shelter far from the door.

Hoffman doesn't tell readers which building she saw, which "shelter" she visited or when she made this foray into smokers' huddles.

For starters, Arcadia has shelters? Pray tell: are they of the bus, bomb or homeless type? Not a one, as far as we know.

For seconds, here in Our Little Town, chawing, smoking, and spitting are considered fundamental rights. Hoffman's Big City stereotype of huddled outcasts is pretty hard to find, if it exists at all. Outdoor smoking in these parts typically happens in parking lots, leaning up against a pickup truck, or under one of our magnificent grandfather oaks. Tell me where Hoffman found huddled outcasts, please.

It has made many smokers paranoid. None of the smokers approached for comments realized the Great American Smokeout day was approaching, but [sic] none planned to quit, even for a day.

"I haven't thought about quitting at all," said one man. "I enjoy it too much." One woman said she had actually quit for five months while she was in the military service and had no choice. "But as soon as I got out, I strated right back up again."

Several said the cost of cigarette is not much of a deterrent here. "But if I lived in New Jersey or up north where it's $5 or $6 for ap ack, then I'd think about it," one said. Most of them said they don't think about smoking while they're working. "As long as we're busy, you don't even have time to think about it," one woman said.

And who, exactly, is "one woman" who speaks for all of the smokers? Old Word Wolf is just cynical enough to think she smells, not smoke, but a story the writer merely phoned in. That is, Hoffman was ordered to write a story that's not news but the calendar and an organizational agenda handed her editors an easy topic. And rather than actually report, Hoffman took the easy way out, complete with faked stereotypes and faked sources to tell faked news.

School Board Story: All Show, No Tell

The local school board is starting an on-line program of classes aimed at reducing its student drop-out rate. So, exactly what is the school drop-out rate? No telling.

Which classes in the curriculum are part of the program? How many students are expected to use the program? No telling.
What does the program cost? No telling.
How does a student enroll? Who supervises the work? No telling.
Where is it to be installed? When does the program begin? No telling.

In an unrelated story inside the paper, the school district's superintendent, Adrian Cline, show-and-tells his own FDR mementos to the local historical society. Cline comments that FDR was able to hide his disability from the public because "he had an understanding with the media. You'd never see that today."

Actually, Cline himself seems to have a pretty good understanding with the media. "Reporter" John Lawhorne has been carefully schooled: No telling anything.

So what's wrong with protecting your friends?

Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism describes its pretty well: journalists ... must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favor. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of a news organization's credibility, the implied covenant that tells the audience the coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers.

John Lawhorne just doesn't get it.

In other news, the Lake Placid Journal breaks a really big story. It looks like God will be pursing other interests.

Muddy Mess Gets Big Play

For some reason, the DeSoto Sun seems to be relying more and more often on amateur photography to fill its pages. The result is clearly inspired by the bulletin board at the laundromat rather than the tenets of photojournalism, the principles of page design, or even the urge to be reader friendly.

Instead of one story-telling shot, well composed and thoughtfully selected, the page pourer (I can't bring myself to say "editor" or even "designer") uses nine muddy, back-lit, identically posed gangs to report a local hospital golf benefit. "Line 'em up against the wall and shoot!" seems to have been the command. Even the guys who couldn't stay for the photo op are included as "not shown."

This muddy, unreadable, uninviting report straddles the "double truck," the newspaper's center page -- prime territory for good design.

And just in case you're thinking this page is a fluke, here's page 14 in the same edition:

Small-time papers like to "get everyone's name in." The old wisdom was this would draw in readers. Please. No one wants to look at, much less actually read, a page presented as a hodge podge of random heads in hats except the principals themselves.

In reality, there are more readers -- and more appreciation for the nature of the event -- when the kids in charge of pouring InDesign plan an inviting, you-gotta-read-me layout. Quantity does not equate to quality.

As for reading, apparently the editors didn't. Every cut line -- all five of them -- in this hodge podge contains the refrain "... vets at the Arcadia Veterans Day parade Tuesday." OK, we get it; all the pictures are of the vets at the Arcadia Veterans Day Parade Tuesday.

Preacher Busy Plagiarizing, Part 2

Is the type too small to read? Then just go to the Web page from which this column has been copied. You'll have to scroll down past last week's plagiarism (read our Nov. 1 post, below) to reach this week's plagiarism. But it's all there.

Old Word Wolf wrote DeSoto Sun editors to point out that Patrick Elmore, pastor of two United Methodist Churches in these parts, had appropriated the copyrighted material of another writer. Nonetheless, Elmore's Plagiarism Part 2 has been awarded six columns in today's paper.

... Here’s the rest of the sermon: ...

It’s clearly the culture and thus acceptable to plagiarize at the Charlotte Sun, DeSoto Sun, and such. How does Old Word Wolf know this? Take a look at who's still "on the payroll."

Last week, Laura Schmid, David Dunn-Rankin and Chris Porter, principal editors of the DeSoto Sun and Charlotte Sun, were notified of Patrick Elmore’s cut-and-paste Saturday sermon. This week, they played Elmore’s Saturday sermon, part 2, plagiarized from the same copyrighted source, large and wide. Plagiarist’s Status: still on the payroll.

A couple of weeks back, staff writer John Lawhorne, used his byline instead of crediting Wikipedia for his “research” into a band’s history. Plagiarist's status: still on the payroll.

Last month, Gerald A. Rogavin, writing for the Gondolier Sun, a sister publication, did a crude plagiarism of a New York Times newspaper article. Plagiarist’s status: still on the payroll.

Susan Cairo, who plagiarized a park service brochure rather than write her own copy about Myakka State Park: still on the payroll.

Barbara Oehlbeck, who plagiarized the History Channel back in May for “her” piece on Decoration Day, was recently awarded a bylined article announcing a USF award to a plant biologist. Plagiarist’s status: Well, you get the point.

These are only the most recent examples of nearly three dozen cases of plagiarism (including the occasional editor and not just freebie "columnists") that we have posted in this blog since launching about a year ago in response to more than a dozen earlier cases that were reported to the publishers and largely ignored.

The publisher’s and editor’s culture at Sun Coast Media Group conglomerate condones – encourages – plagiarism by continuing to accept these articles without consequences for the plagiarists. Plagiarism is cheap, easy, and there’s no real penalty, right? Staff writers, editors, "men of god," and correspondents have all at one time or another cut-and-pasted their way to a byline at these papers. Here, there’s no expectation that the “journalists” investigate, check, attribute, or otherwise play fair with readers, subscribers, advertisers, much less the actual the ethics of publishing.

Plagiarism's Hidden Agenda

Today’s three-column business page item, “Mid-Florida Regional MLS goes public,” carries the byline of Stephen Lingley, a writer presented as a “guest columnist.” The look and feel of Lingley’s article – on the Venice Gondolier business page, with a photo, byline, and a little paragraph about the writer (“outgoing president of the Venice Area Board of Realtors) – suggests in every way possible that Lingley wrote the column.

He didn’t. It’s an abbreviated version of a Web page posted last month by Mid-Florida Regional Multiple Listing service. Here's the evidence -- but the crime goes beyond the mere copying of words.

MFRMLS: More than 80% of homebuyers start their home search online.
Lingley: More than 80 percent of homebuyers start their home search online.
MFRMLS: Increasingly, 3rd party services are taking over the top search engine spots for the most relevant search terms.
Lingley: Increasingly, third-party services are taking over the top search engine spots for the most relevant search terms.
MFRMLS: Realtors who wish to take advantage of 3rd party services such as Yahoo Real Estate, Cyberhomes, Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow often find it can get very expensive.
Lingley: Realtors who wish to take advantage of 3rd party services such as Yahoo Real Estate, Cyberhomes, Realtor.com, Trulia, and Zillow often find it can get very expensive.

And so on. You get the idea. But there's more going on here than garden variety plagiarism.

A local real estate agent – president of his professional group, no less – appropriates a chunk of promotional literature without disclosing its source or origin to readers. The verbiage surely has been freely offered up by the nice MLS folks. After all, the words promote their services and members, Lingley’s little column gets out the MLS message, and the nicely placed spot doesn’t cost the organization a dime in advertising. It is pure agenda disguised as news.

Is it plagiarism? Technically, yes. Lingley presents the work of others as his own. But the sin is more venial than word theft. Lingley and the Gondolier “editors” (I’ll be generous, here), have hidden the origin and purpose of the information. Sure, it’s a “column” and free to be as biased as it wants. The trouble is, no one is telling readers the bias cloaks an MLS marketing agenda.

What Lingley omits from his carefully snipped column are the parts that go like this:

MyFloridaHomesMLS.com is not nearly as powerful as MLXchange. Consumers have access to only a handful of the search criteria available in MLXchange, which means as a REALTOR® you have the power to deliver much more highly-targeted results to your clients than the consumer website can. MyFloridaHomesMLS.com is really meant to be a first stop for homebuyers, a place where they can get a feel for what they want and establish a relationship with a REALTOR®. Once that relationship is established, they are most likely to begin relying on your expertise, on your IDX website, and on the custom agent web page that you provide

The Gondolier has been covering recent controveries surrounding government in the sunshine in Our Little Town. Old Word Wolf suggests editors examine the concept of journalism in the sunshine and spike these thinly veiled ads.

Hed Delivers Snickers for Kids Instead of Facts for Grownups

Those cute kids in the hed shop last night wrote for the giggle instead of the facts -- again. This morning’s three-column headline on the Florida Page, “Naked man says cops broke in without warrant,” proves silly still rules at the playpen copy desk.

The headline kid takes a temporary condition – sleeping in the nude – to characterize a general state of being. In fact, the person in question was awakened in his home – where there’s no law against nakedness – in a case of mistaken identity. By the time the victim filed a complaint against Collier County’s finest, he had found his jeans.

The story says the victim believes he was targeted for a warrantless search based on an anonymous Crime Stopper’s tip because he wears dreads, caps and tats. “I like my dreads. I like my gold teeth. I like my tattoos on my arms,” he’s quoted as saying. Those are his permanent conditions. Less of a snicker and far more relevant and accurate: “Tattooed man says cops broke in without warrant.”

But a Sun copy desk kid (can’t bring myself to say “copy editor”) has an ongoing, adolescent fascination with all things nekkid.

Intern Deserves Better Coaching

Interning reporter Samantha Williamson has covered many DeSoto Sun beats lately, but she seems to get little coaching or mentoring along the way. There’s no evidence she’s checking and double checking her stories or doing background research. The latest free-wheeling free ad she writes – apparently with the blessings of three – or is it four? – “editors,” “assistant editors,” “city editors,” and “news editors” is yesterday’s headline: Home care service helps elder ‘angels.’

The tyro reporter either failed to search Florida’s Department of State on-line records for this corporation’s status, or deemed the result of her records search irrelevant. A quick spin through the database shows Florida “administratively dissolved” the firm in question, Precious Angels Home Care Service, back in September for failure to file its 2008 annual report with the state. The same fate seems to have been dealt the owner’s sideline business, Bunker Babes Goat Farm, at the same address (a rural mobile home).

The young reporter fails to tell readers anything about the owner’s background, education or training that qualifies her to care for elderly clients. An on-line check of licensed health-care workers finds the owner is a certified nursing assistant – a designation the state limits to practicing under “direct nursing supervision” and only for tasks “of a routine, repetitive nature” and which “shall not require the CNA to exercise nursing knowledge, judgment, or skill,” according to Florida Board of Nursing literature.

The newspaper intern reports the firm has “locations” in Port Charlotte, but there’s no listing in that area's current telephone book under that name in the white pages, yellow pages, or “business blue” pages.

The newspaper intern failed to note whether the firm is a franchise operation (nothing wrong with that), because there are scores of businesses using the Precious Angels name across the land. (Most seem to be child-related, and the name evokes the title of a best-selling true-crime story about a mother who murders her children.)

So, questions abound – and the young reporter is not being coached to address them before she hits the send key. Here are just the first ten or so that pop into the skeptical, fact-checking mind of a reader who sincerely hopes this young professional can be encouraged to do better:

--Is this firm working as a brokerage or referral center, or does the owner herself provide assisted living services?
--How many employees or “names in the Rolodex” are involved?
--What’s the price range of services?
--What’s with this “inactive” status for its business license and the “administratively dissolved” issue with the state?
--Is the firm insured and bonded?
--The owner says her “caregivers” are drug tested and undergo background checks – but what about her “companions,” “homemakers,” and “shoppers” who provide the non-medical services? Drug tests and background checks are fairly pricey – how many has she conducted so far?
-- How does the owner deliver “customized services” in hospitals, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, which are usually pretty careful and who practices “care giving” within their walls and are wary of non-family visitors?
--Is the service registered with the state's Department of Elder Affairs?
--Given the new level of concern for patient privacy, how does the owner deal with the contents of her client’s medical history?
-- How does she handle “medication reminders,” which sounds a lot like direct nursing?
-- Does the owner provide emergency medical equipment when she “helps with transportation to medical appointments?” Portable defibrillators? Oxygen? CPR? Wheelchair accessible vans?

Methodist Minister Publishes Amish Writer's Book Chapter as His Own

This morning's DeSoto Sun carries a column under the photo and byline of Rev. Patrick Elmore, pastor of two United Methodist churches in a neighboring village. The column Rev. Elmore calls his own is, in fact, the copyrighted material of John Coblentz,, an Anabaptist who has made an honest living since 1992 by selling his book, Chrisitan Family Living.

Our local Christian Man of God does not attribute or acknowledge his source. The shirt-tail even promises Sun readers they can "read more of the Rev. Elmore's column in Nov. 8's DeSoto Sun." No: We can read more of John Coblentz. And if we don't want wait for the second installment, we can click the link and go straight to the source.

So, what exactly does god's word look like to a plagiarist? Sort of like Noah's ark: the paragraphs come in two by two. Here's the evidence, Coblentz first and the local preacher second.

John Coblentz in 1992: To say that the family is in a state of deterioration in Western culture is anticlimactic.

Rev. Patrick Elmore in 2008: To say that the family is in a state of deterioration in Western culture is an understatement.

John Coblentz: Many have said it. Many are saying it. And the family continues to fall apart. In spite of the multitude of books, seminars, and experts, husbands and wives are still alienating themselves from each other, parents from children, and children from parents.

Rev. Patrick Elmore: Many have said it. Many are saying it. And the family continues to fall apart. In spite of the books, seminars and experts, parents are still alienating themselves from each other, and from children, and children from parents.

Coblentz: Unfortunately, what many fail to realize is that the problem is not simply the Western family, but Western life. While millions are being spent on more programs, better methods, and clearer training for parents, the real problem is often unaddressed. The way we Westerners live--the things we think are important, the attitudes we have toward life, the very structure of our home life--renders ineffective much of the good advice we hear.

Rev. Elmore: Unfortunately, what many fail to realize is that the problem is not simply the modern family, but modern family lifestyle. While millions are being spent on more programs, better methods and clearer training for parents, the real problem is often unaddressed.The things we think are important, the attitudes we have toward life, the very structure of our home life renders ineffective much of the good advice we hear.

Coblentz: One example will suffice. While many Christian parents are wondering whether the music their teens listen to is suitable listening, and sometimes arguing about volume and forbidding this or that tape, few modern parents ever consider that today's music industry, including the Christian music industry, has virtually destroyed certain Christian values. Silence. The sheer noise (even nice-sounding noise) in many homes today would have driven many of our great-grandparents out to the pastures for a quiet walk. Worship. Where, in all the hullaboo of Christian music today and the idolizing of favorite groups and the scrambling for each new tape and bickering over how loud to play it, is the reverent sense of God? And how many thousand-dollar music systems (which are not worth a nickel in heaven) have silenced the voices of families singing simple but heartfelt praise to God?

Rev. Elmore: While many Christian parents wonder whether the music their teens listen to is suitable listening, and sometimes argue about the volume and forbidding this or that, a few 21st century parents ever consider that today’s music industry, including the Christian music industry, has virtually destroyed certain Christian values. Silence. The sheer noise in many homes today would have driven many of our great-grandparent out to the pastures for a quiet walk. Worship. Where in all the hullabaloo of Christian music today and the idolizing of favorite groups and the scrambling for each new release and bickering over how loud to play it, is the reverent sense of God? And how many thousand dollar music systems have silenced the voices of families singing simple but heartfelt praise to God?

Coblentz: The point is simple. There are many homes which can never be wholesome until some radical changes take place in the home structure. It would be foolish to try to build a house in a swamp on straw bales. And it is just as foolish to think we can build godly homes on the values commonly accepted in Western culture. If in Christian homes we find straw bales in the foundation, we cannot correct the problem by hiring some interior decorator to counsel us on paint. The foundation needs help first.

Rev. Elmore: The point is simple. There are many homes which can never be wholesome until some radical changes take place in the home structure. It would be foolish to try to build a house in a swamp on straw. And it is just as foolish to think we can build godly homes on the values commonly accepted in Western culture. If in Christian homes we find straw bales in the foundation, we cannot correct the problem by hiring some interior decorator to counsel us on paint. The foundation needs help first.

Coblentz: This chapter is about foundational things. From the Scriptures we want to see just what God intended the family to be. We want to look at concepts which are basic to the family as a social unit. And later we want to look at some of the straw bales which our culture is pressuring us to use in our homes, and which we must reject if we are to have wholesome families.

Rev. Elmore: The Social Unit. Let’s talk about foundational things. From the Scriptures we want to see just what God intended the family to be. We want to look at concepts which are basic to the family as a social unit. And later we want to look at some of the straw which our culture is pressuring us to use in our homes, and which we must reject if we are to have wholesome families.

Coblentz: The Social Unit. "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up" (Deuteronomy 6:6,7). [...]

Rev. Elmore: The Social Unit. "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up" (Deuteronomy 6:6,7).

Coblentz: From these and similar Scriptures, we can easily see that God intended the family to be the most basic social unit of society. It is the place where such activities as visiting, eating, instruction, work, and play have their center. God intended that we interact with family members more than with anyone else. And having ordained the home to be the primary place of social interaction, God laid down guidelines for proper interaction.

Rev. Elmore: From these and similar Scriptures, we can easily see that God intended the family to be the most basic social unit of society. It is the place where such activities as visiting, eating, instruction, work, and play have their center. God intended that we interact with family members more than with anyone else. And having ordained the home to be the primary place of social interaction, God laid down guidelines for proper interaction.

Coblentz: As a social unit, however, the family in Western culture is seriously deficient. Those who want to work go to the corporation. Those who want to learn go to school. Those who want to play go to the park or the recreation center. Those who want to eat go to McDonalds. Visiting takes place only in snatches. Many Christian families find it strange to have the whole family home for an evening. Monday night is practice. Tuesday night is a ball game. Wednesday night is prayer meeting (for some). Thursday night is office cleaning (second job). Friday night is a social planned....Run, run, run! Such social chaos was virtually unheard of for the family 100 years ago. And so, fathers must be told to do things with their children. Parents need to plan a "family night" or "quality time" because as a social unit, the family is falling apart.
Some of the pressures of over-activity will be discussed more later, but for now, let's note that every child and every adult needs wholesome family interaction.

Rev. Elmore: As a social unit, however, the family in Western culture is seriously deficient. Those who want to work go to the work place. Those who want to learn go to school. Those who want to play go to the park or the recreation center. Those who want to eat go to McDonald’s. Visiting takes place only in snatches. Many Christian families find it strange to have the whole family home for an evening. Monday night is practice. Tuesday night is a ball game. Wednesday night is prayer meeting (for some). Thursday night is choir practice. Friday night is TGIF night out ....Run, run, run! Such social chaos was virtually unheard of for the family 100 years ago. And so, parents must be told to do things with their children. Parents need to plan a "family night" or "quality time" because as a social unit, the family is falling apart. Every child and every adult needs wholesome family interaction.

Head Shop

Clearly, the stadium wasn't running fast enough.

That's the print edition. Here's the e-edition.

Millions missing in embezzlement mystery

The story says $1.6 million and change is gone. That's a singular million, not a plural millions.

Worse, the story carries no report of embezzlement. A bookkeeper is named by a principal in the story, and her Facebook page is discussed at length. However, no charges had been filed against her, and why and how the money disappeared remained a mystery. Old Word Wolf doesn't know how a copy desk editor can predict embezzlement, but she smells a potential libel suit should the story unfold along other lines.

Reporter Uses 1994 Government Press Release as News

Two short bits before the larger story:
Bit Number One: Skimming through John Lawhorne’s front page feature this morning about the effect development has on bird watching (news flash: development is not good for birds), Old Word Wolf happened on his unattributed assertion, “The good news for birders is that, for the time being, Southwest Florida still can be considered one of the premier birding areas in the country, if not the world.”

A Google search of “premier birding areas” turns up Sierra Vista and Tuscon, Ariz., Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina, the Rio Grande Valley; Blaine, Birch Bay and Semiahmoo, Wash., Cheraw Reservoir in Colorado, a dozen places in Montana, Lodi Lake, San Francisco Bay and Santa Cruz, Calif., several spots in Wisconsin, Acadia National Park, Maine, Merritt Island, Fla., Cape May, N.J., Lake Alice, N.Y. – you get the idea.

“Premier birding area” is an empty, overused phrase that a naive reporter has culled from his reading. He thought it sounded nice and decided to share.

And, before we get to that serious headline, there's one more giggle:

Near the close, Lawhorne innocently reports, “Birding requires a minimum of affordable equipment to get started. All you need is a pair of binoculars and a field guide to the local bird fauna and you are ready to head for the outdoors.” Ahem. Lawhorne's birder is ready for the “naturist camp” they’re trying to build in DeSoto County.

But there's much more that is deeply troubling about this story. Lawhorne was recently caught using Wikipedia as an unattributed source (the practice is called plagiarism everywhere except the Charlotte Sun) for a rock band story, of all things. So OWW decided to check the data he used to report the size and scope of the bird watching industry: Lawhorne: “The FWS noted that Americans spend an estimated $18.1 billion a year to watch wildlife.”

A key-word search produced this archived news release from the U.S. Department of the Interior dated May 12, 1995: Bird Migration Thrills Millions, Boosts Economy, but Loss of Habitat Threatens Popular Species and a Rapidly Growing Industry. Along about the second page, this paragraph appears:

“In a study released by the Service, “The Economic Contribution of Bird and Waterfowl Recreation in the United States during 1991,” indicates that, of the estimated $18.1 billion Americans spend annually to watch wildlife, $5.2 billion is spent on bird watching, using the most conservative economic assumptions. That figure could run as high an $9 billion, according to the report’s author, Rob Southwick of Southwick Associates. Using conservative assumptions, the number of jobs supported by bird watching is 200,000, according to the study.”

Without telling, Lawhorne feeds readers a 13-year-old press release whose information is based on a study published four years prior to that. And, he misrepresents the information. Here’s how he does it.

Lawhorne: “About 200,000 jobs nationally are supported by birdwatching. The FWS noted that Americans spend an estimated $18.1 billion a year to watch wildlife.”

Any editor worth his paycheck would notice that “wildlife” is not restricted to birds. Lawhorne’s own source attributes less than a third of that amount (about $5.2 billion)to bird watching. But Lawhorne doesn’t tell readers this, and neither does he tell readers that the job data is 17 years old.

The government press release goes on to report, “All indications are the bird-watching and -feeding hobby is growing fast. The number of specialty stores selling wild birdseed, feeders, and equipment has exploded in recent years ...”

And Lawhorne dutifully copies: “According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all indications are that the bird watching and feeding hobby is growing fast. The number of specialty stores selling wild birdseed, feeders and equipment has grown dramatically in recent years.”

Lawhorne, the copyist, is unable to supply what any wide-awake editor would ask for: What numbers constitute dramatic growth? He can’t because his 1995 press release about the 1991 data doesn’t say.

In addition, Lawhorne is unable to report what the 2008 economic downturn, which has shuttered thousands of small specialty shops, has done to his claim of dramatic growth in recent years – that is, almost 20 years ago. For example, Wild Bird Center Inc., a retail-store franchise operation that targets the bird watching and feeding hobbyist, has declined from “more than 100” retail outlets five years ago to about 80 today, according to OWW's historical review of the firm's press releases.

Why is OWW picking on John Lawhorne? For one thing, she likes her news reporters to be accurate, fair, and honest. Today’s big-play feature and its author are none of these. Lawhorne is thumbing his nose at his readers, his editors, his publisher, and the profession of journalism.

Silly Lede o' the Day

Mention the numbers "90210" and most adults will recall the hit FOX TV series "Beverly Hills 90210." But it's likely those same people would draw a blank if asked what the numbers 5-2-1-0 stand for. -- Brooky Brown, Venice Gondolier.

Silly 1: "most adults" to most adults -- and to journalists who care about accurate, precise reporting -- means a majority of grownups. Pardon me, but I'm skeptical. And even if I'm wrong, I'd like to know what survey Brooky took to arrive at this sweeping generalization.

Silly 2: The second sentence is a non sequitur. It doesn't follow. It has no logical, emotional, social, geographical, biological, economic or philosophical relationship to the prior sentence. Whether people remember a television show with a number in its title is unrelated to whether they know what 5-2-1-0 stands for.

Silly 3: The numbers are not in the same format, which might have passed for a semblence of semblence. One number is five digits attached to a geographical location. The other is four digits separated by dashes attached to nothing.

Please, whenever an irrelevant pop-culture reference, served up with a sweeping generalization, appears in your copy, use the delete key before you use the send key. Readers want news, not the frazzled associations of a TV junkie.