4A Thursday, November 17, 2011
Sugarcreek Bellbrook Times
OPINION
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. - The First Amendment to the United States Constitution
Better in the old days Serving the public trust instead of just chasing profits made the journalism business better in the old days, even without computers It’s been a little more than 50 years since I first walked into the Des Moines Register newsroom to begin a career in journalism. It was a beat-up scruffy place filled with beat-up scruffy people, almost all men. They worked in a big room lined with gray steel desks piled high with newspapers, stacks of books, notebooks, and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette stubs. They wrote on manual, black typewriters. The phones, also black, had rotary dials. This scene right out of The Front Page was a case of love at first sight. “This is my kind of place,” I told myself. And, as it turned out, I was right. 1960s-newsroom But the most important thing about that room was something you couldn’t see: an invisible wall that protected its inhabitants from interference from the business department. It meant that, if you had the facts on your side, you could annoy the rich and powerful of the city. The wall would protect you from retaliation. The best newspapers in those days tended to be owned by long-time newspaper families. These owners viewed their papers as profit machines, certainly, but also as a public trust. These families supported the principle that news was news and business was business, and the two should not be confused. It wasn’t a perfect arrangement. It would have been better, for example, to have had more women and people of color reporting and editing the news. But it worked pretty well for decades. Things changed in newsrooms as they did everywhere else. Computers
COMMENTARY By Donald Kaul OtherWords Columnist arrived on the scene, bringing with them increased efficiency but also competition for readers and advertising dollars. The ranks of the ruling families grew too numerous to be fed by dividends alone. They cashed out, selling at elevated prices to newspaper chains, which then resold the publications to business brigands who had neither understanding nor interest in newspapers as newspapers. Newspapers were just another kind of dog food to them. In city after city, papers were closed down, staffs cut to the bone, and home delivery severely curtailed. The invisible wall? Can something invisible disappear? It did. Nowhere was that scenario played out more starkly than at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times companies, home to a half dozen of the nation’s finest papers. A friend of mine, James O’Shea, a top editor at both the Tribune and the Times, had a ringside seat at the disaster. He’s written a book giving a blowby-blow account: The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers. It’s not a pretty story. The Chicago Tribune papers and the Los Angeles Times group merged in 2000, a move that made L.A.’s power-
ful Chandler clan significantly richer and journalism considerably poorer in California’s largest city. Increasingly the bulwark between the business and news departments was ignored. The business types couldn’t understand the need for it. News should be put at the service of profits and the quicker the better, they thought. Soon the answer to every problem was to water down the product with brutal staff cuts, domestic and foreign bureau closures, and the pursuit of trivial, celebrity-oriented stories. Give the people what they want was the new mantra. What was no-brainer logic to business people was anathema to old-fashioned journalists like O’Shea who held the quaint belief that the job of a newspaper is to inform readers. O’Shea and others fought for that creed but couldn’t overcome, in his words, “the greed, incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy…of people who put their interests ahead of the public’s.” The sad story ends with the sale of the giant corporation to a Chicago real estate tycoon, Sam Zell, a bizarre foulmouthed figure who makes Donald Trump look couth. Eventually Zell led the company into bankruptcy, leaving his papers limping along with insupportable debt and evershrinking staffs. I hate to be one of those old crocks who talks about how things were better in the old days. But you know what? Some things really were better in the old days, including newspapers. OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. http://otherwords.org.
Editorial Somebody needs to stand up for victim of beating Among the most disturbing aspects of the recent Chillicothe classroom beating of one student by another, captured on another student’s cell-phone video, is that no one appeared to try to help the victim as he was repeatedly punched and thrown to the floor.
High school has been known to be a tough place, but is a sense of moral duty, not to mention compassion, in such short supply that no one felt compelled to seek help? … What makes bullying so insidious is that much of it is conducted under the radar of adults. There are a thousand ways for bullies to deliver a taunt or a threat that leaves no evidence. … Ohio school districts are required to have policies banning bullying. At Unioto High School where this assault
occurred, more effort is needed to impress upon students that they have a duty to tell a responsible adult when they see bullying, whether it’s a physical attack, verbal intimidation or any of the myriad ways a troubled youth can torment a classmate. Just as bullying should not be tolerated, neither should a school culture in which students think it acceptable to stand by while one classmate is hurt by another. — The Columbus Dispatch
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By Bill Taylor
IT SEEMS TO ME
Unrecognized volunteers It seems to me that one of the characteristics of our small town/rural county is how we have so many folks who voluntarily perform activities that would not otherwise be available from public resources. These people willingly give their own time, talent, and treasure to provide these valuable, but often unrecognized, services for their fellow citizens. I recently came across a story involving two such groups working together to enhance the security and safety of our county. I would venture to guess that most folks hereabouts have never heard of the Greene County Mounted Search Team (MoST). Well, according to the MoST website, the organization, created in 2008 in conjunction with the Greene County Sheriff’s office and the Greene County Ohio Horseman’s Council, is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization. Its mission is “… working to help city, county, state, and other government agencies locate, aid, and assist the lost and/or injured hiker, hunter, adult, child, or others in need.” Members pay for and maintain their own horses, trucks, trailers, and equipment with funding coming solely from the members and donations. They are “special” deputies, meaning that they are part of the Sheriff’s Office, but do not have arrest authority. (You can find out lots more stuff about this remarkable organization at www.co.greene.oh.us/Sheriff/SO and click on Mounted Search Team) As can well be imagined, a horse and rider can cover areas not visible to air searches, not accessible to vehicles, and not speedily reached by foot. But this capability to venture far afield into relatively remote locales also gives rise to a bit of a problem — keeping track of exactly where a horse and rider is at any given time. That’s where the second all-volunteer group of folks recently came into the picture. There are three amateur radio clubs in Greene county — the Upper Valley Amateur Radio Club (UVARC) of Fairborn, the Bellbrook Amateur Radio Club (BARC), and the Xenia Weather Amateur Radio Net (XWARN) of Xenia. These clubs participate in a variety of public service activities ranging from supplying communications support for the Air Force Marathon to providing operators for the Emergency Operations Centers. I’m not sure how some local amateur radio operators ( who are also known as Hams) became aware of the mounted search team or of their difficulty in geo-positioning. All I know is that members of all three amateur radio clubs became knowledgeable of both the team and the problem. It turns out that amateur radio has an inexpensive, compact, handy-dandy battery-powered device available to Hams that provides precise location information. This piece of gear consists of a receiver and a transmitter with the receiver using the satellite positioning system signals to determine the location of the device and the transmitter automatically sending out that information along with a unique identifier over an amateur-only radio frequency. The location and identity of each user can then be displayed on a computer, such as laptop. Pretty slick, huh? One problem, though, only licensed Hams can use this particular equipment. Well, don’t you know the Hams and the mounted search team folks got together to resolve this difficulty — by providing the opportunity for MoST members to become licensed. Yes, Hams from all three radio clubs put together a free training program specifically for the mounted search team — kind of a how-tobecome-a Ham-in-a- hurry effort. They also arranged for a team of examiners to administer the test required by the Federal Communications Commission for licensing — at no charge. The report I got was that almost 90 percent passed and are now licensed operators who can use that precision location system. How ‘bout that! Cost to the taxpayer for all this? Nothing! Nada! Zilch! Nope, these friends and neighbors provide invaluable services to the public with no reimbursement and little recognition. You know, there are so many instances of unnoticed voluntary service it’s difficult to recount them. For example, did you know that for years when the youngsters have been out for Trick or Treat night, local amateur radio has activated a special net with operators in both fixed locations and vehicles to monitor neighborhoods for possible problems — with the net tied in with law enforcement just in case. It’s unrecognized volunteers like these — among many others — who embody the spirit that makes living here so great. We should be truly thankful for them. At least that’s how it seems to me. Bill Taylor, a Greene County Daily columnist and area resident, may be contacted at solie1@juno.com.
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