UPDATE: 09212010 - 09:45 AM
To:tramols@att.net
Martin, isn't this a little like 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'?
Why in the world would Jeff refuse to open a 'reliable' source's e-mails because of something so petty? Apparently the paper isn't interested in getting good information from private sources. You don't treat your 'source's' so shabbily.
Reminds me of something similar in 'childishness' that I know he sent a reader and commentor on the Rep a few months ago. She had written Mr. Gauger, not with a 'scoop' but with a very legitimate question concerning not being allowed to comment on 'crime' stories.
Not knowing much about computers, and the proper protocol about caps to use when sending an e-mail, PLUS a problem with her eyes, she used all caps in her e-mail to him. She meant no disrespect and had no idea that it was considered 'shouting'. She didn't even know what 'shouting' meant, which is why she wrote me asking 'huh?' after receing (sic) the answer from him. ( I didn't either when I first started commenting on the Rep)
Mr. Gauger, using absolutely no finesse befitting a newspaper executive editor, wrote back;, "Please don’t “shout” at me in all caps. In future, I’ll not answer your all-cap e-mails."
It's now always what you say, but HOW you say it. He sure missed the boat on that one. This lady was a customer of his newspaper. I would think he could have told her about the caps in a more friendly way. She felt like you know what when she got that reply from him. To threaten her with not reading anymore of her e-mails if she used "all caps" in the future, reminded me of a kid throwing a tantrum or a teenager going through puberty and suffering with acne.
Martin, isn't this a little like 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'?
Why in the world would Jeff refuse to open a 'reliable' source's e-mails because of something so petty? Apparently the paper isn't interested in getting good information from private sources. You don't treat your 'source's' so shabbily.
Reminds me of something similar in 'childishness' that I know he sent a reader and commentor on the Rep a few months ago. She had written Mr. Gauger, not with a 'scoop' but with a very legitimate question concerning not being allowed to comment on 'crime' stories.
Not knowing much about computers, and the proper protocol about caps to use when sending an e-mail, PLUS a problem with her eyes, she used all caps in her e-mail to him. She meant no disrespect and had no idea that it was considered 'shouting'. She didn't even know what 'shouting' meant, which is why she wrote me asking 'huh?' after receing (sic) the answer from him. ( I didn't either when I first started commenting on the Rep)
Mr. Gauger, using absolutely no finesse befitting a newspaper executive editor, wrote back;, "Please don’t “shout” at me in all caps. In future, I’ll not answer your all-cap e-mails."
It's now always what you say, but HOW you say it. He sure missed the boat on that one. This lady was a customer of his newspaper. I would think he could have told her about the caps in a more friendly way. She felt like you know what when she got that reply from him. To threaten her with not reading anymore of her e-mails if she used "all caps" in the future, reminded me of a kid throwing a tantrum or a teenager going through puberty and suffering with acne.
ORIGINAL POST
How to make a failure into a triumph.
That is the attempt being made by the "bigs" at The Repository in the spate of pieces in today's Repository on the "revelation?" that Vince Frustaci had inside help in his stealing what federal judge John Adams believes to be $2.96 million from Stark County taxpayers.
"After the fact journalism," that is what is being practiced by The Repository these days.
"After the fact" to appeal to the prurient interest in order to excite sales of the print edition of of The Rep.
It is commonly known that the newspaper industry is in survival mode these days and a major reason is its wholesale abandonment of investigative journalism.
And Stark County's ONLY countywide newspaper The Repository is no exception to the rule.
The SCPR (published since March, 2007) has been hearing the rumors about accomplice Cutshall and actor Frustaci connection since April, 2009 when Frustaci was fired as chief deputy by the then Treasurer Gary Zeigler on account of the revelation (by State of Ohio auditors) that county money had been stolen by Frustaci.
The Repository pieces reveal that the Frustaci thefts may go back to 2001.
Frustaci has said that he stole the money to cover gambling debts.
The Report believes that the "bigs" at the Rep and some Stark County law enforcement officials have known about "illegal" high stakes poker games participated in by significantly placed public officials; including, we now know, Vince Frustaci.
Well, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the "losers" at these games (and, over time, they all lose money) have to cover their gambling debts.
The question becomes: how to do so?
Stark Countians now know how Vince Frustaci decided to cover his gambling losses.
Is Stark County in for additional revelations?
Hopefully not, but, if not, it will not be because The Repository's staff of investigative reporters have dug out the names and job descriptions of "the losers with gambling debts to cover."
Not long after the Stark County Political Report started up and the readers of The Report figured out that yours truly is not a respecter of persons and that The Report does name names and report reality when sources identify themselves "on background" and various nuances of "off-the-record," the SCPR started getting requests to investigate this Stark County matter or that Stark County matter.
While yours truly (not a trained investigative journalist) does what one person can, The Report is just that: one person! - who functions as an "opinion" journalist.
It just so happens that the SCPR, in issuing daily opinion blogs, does much more than most editorialists in gathering factual data to support the opinion rendered.
Just compare a SCPR opinion piece with a Repository opinion piece on the same story.
Some readers confuse the SCPR;s step-up in editorial writing quality as being the work of a reporter and beyond that an investigative journalist. No. The SCPR is and will continue to be an opinion journalist with data and facts to support the opinion.
The last The Report knew, The Repository has about 60 employees.
More than that, because The Repository has been a monopoly in Stark County news for a long, long time; The Rep's employees, including its "bigs" get telephone calls, letters and personal entreaties dripping-ripe with inside information that should serve as a springboard to strident investigative journalism. But it doesn't. Why not?
The SCPR's take is that The Repository "powers that be" are so much in bed with the Stark County political and government establishment that they pick and choose very carefully who they take on.
Because of "bottom line pressures" The Repository has taken to soliciting the business of entities that may become subjects of inquiry (e.g. Canton government, SARTA [a partnership], Canton City Schools and the like).
Hard hitting and penetrating journalism suffer when relationships like those referred to above develop. And, moreover, the reading public - once these relationships become public knowledge - wonder about the integrity of The Rep's publication of stories and opinions.
One story that bugs the SCPR is one in which The Report is told that a Repository reporter is privy to certain information about the Uniontown Industrial Excess Landfill controversy and wants to do a story revealing what the reporter knows, but whom is being held-at-bay by "the higher ups."
How many stories are "the mahogany row" types at The Rep sitting on?
The Report is told by a source that Repository Executive Editor Jeff Gauger will no longer open the source's e-mails "because he is mad at her." Mad at her? Really? Gauger is mad at her because he sent her a letter (unmarked "confidential") because the source released the letter to public authorities.
So let The Report get this right.
A source may have a dynamite tip or story potentially weighs in or the health and safety of certain Stark Countians but the Stark County reading public does not get the benefit of it because the "only countywide newspaper" editor in Stark County is mad at the source?
Wow!
1 comment:
Martin, isn't this a little like 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'?
Why in the world would Jeff refuse to open a 'reliable' source's e-mails because of something so petty? Apparently the paper isn't interested in getting good information from private sources. You don't treat your 'source's' so shabbily.
Reminds me of something similar in 'childishness' that I know he sent a reader and commentor on the Rep a few months ago. She had written Mr. Gauger, not with a 'scoop' but with a very legitimate question concerning not being allowed to comment on 'crime' stories.
Not knowing much about computers, and the proper protocol about caps to use when sending an e-mail, PLUS a problem with her eyes, she used all caps in her e-mail to him. She meant no disrespect and had no idea that it was considered 'shouting'. She didn't even know what 'shouting' meant, which is why she wrote me asking 'huh?' after receing the answer from him. ( I didn't either when I first started commenting on the Rep)
Mr. Gauger, using absolutely no finesse befitting a newspaper executive editor, wrote back;, "Please don’t “shout” at me in all caps. In future, I’ll not answer your all-cap e-mails."
It's now always what you say, but HOW you say it. He sure missed the boat on that one. This lady was a customer of his newspaper. I would think he could have told her about the caps in a more friendly way. She felt like you know what when she got that reply from him. To threaten her with not reading anymore of her e-mails if she used "all caps" in the future, reminded me of a kid throwing a tantrum or a teenager going through puberty and suffering with acne.
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