Hey Mario,
It's good to hear from you. I have one big advantage to help me report about
this meeting and the media reports about it. I was present at the event.
I confronted the problems with the original West piece before on the listserv.
There is so much information, it's not easy to follow and remember all details
about each issue.
Others pointed out that this West piece is a highly pro-UCD opinion piece yet
it pretends to be a report about an important public issue and event. That is
not responsible journalism. As pointed out by others, Mr. West did not disclose
his close partnership with UCD. And I pointed out that statements reported as
quotes did not occur. This is important.
"I work with Penn and UCD. But somebody decided to lie on him. I'm very
disappointed."
I heard no such statement by Blackwell. A quote must be exact not some summary.
If a grammatical error is part of the made up statement, it goes beyond the
other biased portrayals of Blackwell. ("swept into the Penn Community Relations
Office's First Thursday meeting." The truth is Blackwell was politely
introduced and given the floor by Mr. Bryan).
Then there is the strange punctuation usage that we must look at. Not enclosed
with quotation marks is the following:
"Not so, replied UCD Executive Director Lewis Wendell, who attended the
meeting. Fenton is on paid administrative leave pending the results of an
internal investigation." Then enclosed in quotation this follows immediately:
"'The UCD leadership is reviewing the matter and will determine an appropriate
course of action once all the facts are known," he added'
This didn't happen, Mario. Wendell didn't say any of this. Wendell only read
the first "official statement" and refused to confirm or deny anything else
although asked repeatedly to do so.
Then we have the statement about Mr. Fenton: Not enclosed within quotation
marks:
"The investigation is slow in part because Fenton is not cooperating." Then
enclosed with quotation marks this follows:
"'UCD has made numerous documented attempts to contact John Fenton asking him
to respond to the matter under investigation. Our calls and letters have gone
unanswered," Wendell explained later.
This never happened, Mario. This cannot be defended after the fact as if an
interview occurred immediately after the public meeting. It looks like a second
punctuation error, but any reasonable reader unaware of the facts would assume
this occurred at the meeting.
If West had a separate private interview and was handed the second press
release, he can not pretend it happened at the meeting. That would have needed
to be stated.
Get 10 people at Penn unaware of this controversy. Have them read the piece.
Ask them to tell you all statements that occurred at the meeting. See what
happens.
Think of the mistakes while you consider the insulting portrayal of Blackwell
and the completely pro-UCD restating of the UCD public relations spin.
This is very important. Councilwoman Blackwell clearly and publicly gave us
the reason that Mr. Fenton can not now make a statement. I believe Craig is
correct when he tells us that a gag order severance contract would prohibit Mr.
Fenton from speaking even if he has been the victim of libel.
There is no way a credible journalist could publish that statement about Mr.
Fenton (supposedly done while the Public Record and Melani exclusively receive
the second official statement) without including this clearly made, completely
conflicting report, by our elected Councilwoman. It doesn't matter what you
feel about the underlying issues.
THIS CONSTITUTES COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE JOURNALISM. The total impact of
petending that this UCD press release is a report, making false quotes by
setting up quotation mistakes, and reporting secret leaks while ignoring the
publicly conveyed account by an elected representative is unmistakeable to me.
I hope that helps you put this in context. If the Councilwoman is the credible
party here, and I believ she is; Mr. Fenton is probably prohibited from making
some statement. As Karen put so well, John Fenton got screwed.
Mr. West's report only tells you about Mr. West and has absolutely no other
value. It causes harm to mislead reader's of The Public Record and is an
example of the power to misuse the press.
Glenn
----- Original Message -----
From: Mario Giorno
To: University City List
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [UC] BIDs in the news
Glenn,
I can see what Tony is describing as a matter of proper reporting.
Forgive me for speaking out of line, Tony, as I'm not a journalist by
profession, but have always found that journalistic norms or standards should
be upheld. What people say, what people mean and finally what reporters quote
or report are often not indicative of the same meaning or intention.
Just because John didn't cooperate with the UCD internal investigation,
doesn't mean he isn't either cooperative in general or cooperative with his
co-workers at UCD. It just means he didn't want to and therefore didn't submit
to an interrogation by Lewis Wendell. It's actually his right to not cooperate
with such an internal investigation, if he has no legal protection/guideline in
place via a work contract and internal code of conduct procedure in place. It's
still factual to say that he didn't cooperate with UCD's or Wendell's
investigation of the Malcolm X Park incident, but it again doesn't mean he's
being generally uncooperative. Also remember that the words "not cooperating"
or "did not cooperate" came from a journalist interviewing Lewis Wendell, so
these are Wendell's well-chosen words and one might go further to say his
intentions were to somehow prove John Fenton to be uncooperative. >From a
journalistic standpoint, there's nothing factually wrong with what Tony is
saying, he just happens to be repeating words that were already put in place by
earlier reporting of the Wendell response.
What we need now is a balancing measure in the news, we need a statement
from John Fenton's point of view to counterpoint Wendell's and put the issue(s)
in proper focus. Right now all we have is a one-sided argument, unless you
count Councilwoman tirade in support of John Fenton, and that, I'm afraid, is
not the same as John speaking for himself or through an attorney. Until that
happens, all of us in UC and on this list are just spinning our collective
wheels and blowing a lot of hot air..
My Two Cents,
Mario Giorno
36 S. 48th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19139
On 7/19/07, Glenn < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony West" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "University City List" <UnivCity@list.purple.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 10:23 PM
Subject: [UC] BIDs in the news
> Ray,
>
> That Fenton did not cooperate with the investigation is not a judgement on
> cooperativeness of his character, and I did not write: "Fenton is not a
> cooperative man," which would be a true ad hominem argument. It was just a
> statement of fact. He did not cooperate with this investigation. No one
> has disputed this claim with a conflicting account that alleges
> cooperation.
Statement of fact!!!!
Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell reported that Mr. Fenton had been ordered to
resign, keep silent, and had a six-month severance package to back it up!
Your "fact" has indeed been "disputed" with a "conflicting account." You are
again calling the Councilwoman a liar in front of everyone who attended the
Penn meeting. You're even denying it happened at that very public meeting!
This is not journalism in which you are engaged!
You and Melani have a weird second "press release" from Mr. Lewis Wendell to
prove this "uncooperative Fenton" spin. You and UCD want to make this case
that Mr. Fenton refused to cooperate and now you deny that Blackwell gave
this contradictory public account.
How can Fenton or any UCD employee cooperate while under a gag order? How
can you refuse to report this conflicting account while asserting this
"fact?" Yeah right, Mr. Wendell's "documented" calls. Who do you think buys
this "investigation?" Where are these documentation records?
There appears to be no limit to your arrogance! You are an embarrassment
for
the FOCP and The Public Record.
Those of us at the Penn meeting know that Mr. Wendell had every opportunity
to deny the facts of the Councilwoman's account. He refused to confirm or
deny anything when he had the opportunity.
No reputable journalist would take such an obvious dispute and call it a
fact. At no time did you follow-up on the only account delivered publicly.
Now you deny it occurred! You engage in the most obvious yellow journalism
I've ever seen at close range.
Mr. Moyer
He may have had wise, legitimate reasons for not
> cooperating. Knowing John much better than you do, I am sure he had good
> reasons.
>
> You write that my second article was "an attempt to legitimize BIDs by
> presenting them in a positive way." Quite the mind-reader, you are! BIDs
> don't need to be "legitimized"; they are creatures of law. I explained
the
> process of successfully establishing a BID. To study that, one needs to
> look at a BID that has been successfully established. I was quite
> surprised, though, to discover how free of opposition the Mt. Airy BID
had
> been. I did not "make a case" for it; that case had just been made,
> entirely without me. I pushed hard to look for dissenters, looked under
> the usual rocks, found none. So a fact emerges: some BID proposals are
> more popular than others. Make of this fact what you will. And read my
> third article, while you're at it. Get out of your parochial cubicle on
> Locust Walk and check out the rest of the city you live in.
>
> If you have a tip on a BID in the city that is experiencing significant
> opposition or dissent, please let me know. I was the first writer in the
> city to publish the opposition UCD ran into from Blackwell.
>
> I can hardly have any dependency on "UCD or its proposed BID." Its
> proposed BID specifically excludes me and has no relevance to any
> community activism I engage in, so I have publicly declined to take a
> stand on it. The company that pays me to report couldn't care less about
> UCD or Penn or FoCP or Ray Rorke; none of the above has ever been worth a
> plug nickel to us. We're interested in stories that shed light on
citywide
> issues of governance, and local service districts in general are
> increasingly important players. Perhaps you find this bad news. Still,
> it's news you have a right to learn.
>
> -- Tony West
>> ucd's statement was: 'UCD has made numerous documented attempts to
>> contact John Fenton asking him to respond to the matter under
>> investigation. Our calls and letters have gone unanswered.' that's a
>> statement of fact. in your article, you state: 'fenton is not
>> cooperating with the investigation.' that's a judgement on your part
>> about fenton, not a statement of fact. there are any number of
>> legitimate reasons fenton might not have been able to communicate with
>> ucd, reasons that you might not have known about, reasons that had
>> nothing to do with cooperativeness. you might take more care, when
>> writing for public newpapers, to avoid the ad hominem.
>>> In that article, I wrote nothing at all about UCD's proposed BID,
>>> because it bears no relation at all to Fenton's activities or the
>>> subject of the story. UCD at this time is an SSD, not a BID.
>> your article was entitled "Blackwell Battles Penn Over Services District:
>> First in a Series." at the end of the article we learn that it's the
>> first in a series of articles about "how different neighborhoods tackle
>> the challenge of supplementing public services."
>>
>> your next article, "What's in a Bid? More Local Services or Just Taxes?"
>> makes the case for a 'winning bid' in mt. airy, and is an attempt to
>> legitimize bids by presenting them in a positive way. as we all know,
>> the legitimacy of ucd's proposed bid took a big hit when the whole
fenton
>> affair blew up and blackwell publicly voiced her alienation with
>> ucd/penn.
>>> Yes, you, Ray Rorke, are befuddled. Q.E.D.
>> ergo: I can see clearly what you, tony west, cannot. how dependent
you've
>> become upon ucd and its proposed bid, how that dependency is tenaciously
>> defended, how intimately it's wrapped up with your personal need to
>> control focp...
>>
>> [aka ray]
>
>
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