GETTING THE BRUSH-OFF: IS MY HOMETOWN PAPER TAKING LESSONS FROM THE MEDIA BIG BOYS??
By
Gloria R. Lalumia
Dateline:
New Mexico, May 8, 2002
It all
started Saturday/early Sunday (May 4/5) over at the Democratic
Underground site and Buzzflash. A poster to DU had provided
a link on Saturday to a press release from Earth Justice about an
EPA memo that had been issued late Friday. And you may have
noticed the headline that appeared Saturday at Buzzflash which
read “Bush Administration Approves Most Damaging Change to
Clean Water Act in Decades 5/5” which also linked to the
release.
Since
Christie Whitman apparently signed an order to allow dumping of
coalmine waste into waterways late on Friday to avoid scrutiny
from the media, I didn’t expect to see a story in my local
paper on Saturday. But since the city of Las Cruces is now
at the start of a Super Fund cleanup of a solvent that has
entered the water supply, I figured that this story would
interest our community. There has been good coverage of
that story and Saturday’s edition even carried a short
article on air quality in the county. And there are always
stories about the water and drought problems in the area and the
fights between Texas and New Mexico over Rio Grande water. I
began wondering how Whitman’s change would affect the mining
interests in New Mexico and if we would start to see dumping here
and how that might affect the state’s precious water supply.
So it didn’t seem too far-fetched to figure a story on the
rule change would appear in the Sunday edition, for sure.
Nope.
Not a word. So I decided that calling the paper would be my
Sunday project.
Day 1 --
Sunday
First,
some background. The Sun-News is part of a chain of papers
under single ownership, which covers the entire southern section
of New Mexico and an area up in the 4 Corners region. The
paper serves the second largest city in the state and picks up
news from El Paso that affects the area. The owners have
imported an editor from New York and we get regular reports on
how the paper is being improved. One thing is certain, Sports
always rates its own section, no matter what. Some things
never change!
If you
look up the Las Cruces Sun-News in the phone directory,
there’s a list of numbers for the Business Office,
Advertising, Classified Advertising, Circulation, News Tips,
Sports Tips, and Sound Off (where people too lazy to write a
letter to the editor can call to deliver some of the silliest
comments you’d ever want to read). Logic told me that
calling the “News Tips” number would be the way to
reach the news staff. As it turned out, calling any number
except for Sound Off connected me to a taped message that told me
the hours of the paper are from Monday thru Friday and informed
me that I could leave a message at the News desk. Not true.
When I called the number that was given, there was no way to
leave a message.
I called
at 6:45 AM, 9:30, and noon on Sunday. No one there,
anywhere.
In the
meantime, I collected some web links that I could offer the
reporting staff. Aside from 2 links to the press release, I
scrounged up a link to MSNBC with an AP story from April 30 which
described changes to the Clean Water Act that were being
“considered” and another to an op/ed piece from the May
4 edition of the New York Times. A quick search of the AP
site came up with nothing on Whitman’s Friday action.
At 6 PM,
I called the paper again and got a human being!! It was
Donny, a copy editor, who sounded half asleep from allergies.
I asked when the staff usually showed up and he said reporters
were “around” during the day and the copy editing staff
started drifting in between 3 and 5 PM. He admitted he had
just gotten in—at 6 PM. First, I told him that I
hadn’t been able to leave a message for the News desk, even
though the tape on the main number said I could. “Yeah,
well, I know, what about that?” replied Donny with a
chuckle. Not too encouraged by this laid-back response, I
launched into my spiel on how the community would be interested
in this hidden EPA story. But Donny couldn’t say anything
but “Wow,” “Gee,” and “Mmm.” So
I asked him the name of a contact. Well, it was the Editor
who decided everything and he wouldn’t be in until later and
he was always really busy. I took the hint that it
wouldn’t be easy to actually speak to the Editor. So I
asked for his email address because I could see I was hitting a
brick wall already and the evening was young.
Instead
of wasting time waiting to try another call, I decided to take
action. I composed a letter, full of praise for the Las
Cruces Sun-News, packed with documentation in the form of the web
links I had collected, and a bit of “concerned citizen
outrage” and a plea for help:
Dear Mr.
Rosenthal:
I am writing to you because I've
always thought the Sun-News has covered environmental issues
well. I thought I should alert you to a major story that
has been buried by the Administration. Since Las Cruces is
sitting on a Super Fund site involving tainted water, I found
this story to be alarming.
On Friday, May 3rd, late in the day,
EPA head Christie Whitman apparently signed an order permitting
the dumping of mining waste into streams. Prior to this, on
April 30, an AP story had outlined what actions were being
"considered." I found a link to this story at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/745535.asp
The next thing I found was a
story/news release reporting that, indeed, the deed was done! I
found the information on the internet, but not through the AP or
other sources. Frankly, it was like this had never
happened!! The following two URLs are the same press
release issued by an environmental law group which outlines the
possible ramifications of this reversal:
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/display.html?ID=365http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/first/0503-144.html
Finally, I found an op/ed piece at
the NY Times on this issue: (URL below)http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/opinion/_04SAT2.html
Frankly, Mr. Rosenthal, I am not sure
how the change in this law, done so surreptitiously, will affect
areas all over the country. But I would like to find out! NM
has mining interests and I am concerned that wholesale dumping of
waste could turn up in our streams, rivers, and, ultimately, our
drinking water.
Won't you please delve into this and
see if there are ANY stories on the subject that have been
written by the AP, Reuters, or a major news organization in the
country?
As a citizen, I believe the secrecy
and underhanded tactics displayed by Christie Whitman (who used
to be my governor when I lived in NJ) in signing this order are
not to be tolerated. The silence in the media has been
deafening!
Sincerely,
Gloria R. Lalumia
Las Cruces, NM
Meanwhile,
as the email wended its way through cyberspace to the office
about 3 miles down the road, I got a call from the New York
Times!!
Or
rather, a guy try selling me a subscription…But this was no
college kid sitting in a cubicle at a call center in Orlando.
No, this guy was an honest-to-God New Yorker. As a Jersey
Girl, I could tell right away he was the real thing—just
imagine a friendlier version of Michael Savage.
I told
him I was in New Mexico and didn’t need the Times and when
he tried to suggest that
I
wasn’t really prepared to comment on the editorial page in
detail, so I pulled out the most obvious example of why I was
losing hope for the Times. “Richard Berke—every
time he writes a story about Al Gore, there’s a bias, a dig.
He doesn’t stick to the facts; it’s not good
journalism. On the internet, he’s lovingly referred to
as Berke the Jerk.”
“Hey,
next time I see him, I’ll tell him!” he
exclaimed. I told he him he should definitely do that and he
signed off with “Thanks for telling me, I’m going to
look into his stories! Have a good night!”
The thought of the possibility, however slim, of someone calling Berke a jerk to his face gave me more satisfaction than I’ve had in ages! And all thanks to a New York Times telemarketer!
Day 2 --
Monday
Meanwhile,
nothing had happened with the Sun-News. On Monday, there
was no story and each time I checked my email, there was no reply
from the Editor. Finally, at 9 PM I made another call and
reached Donny again. Donny sounded a lot better, I’m
happy to report. But he knew nothing about the story or my
email and it turns out, the Editor was not there. In fact,
Donny told me he was there from 9 to about 5 or 6. When I
joked that instead of putting the paper to bed, he was working
“banker’s hours,” Donny nervously offered,
“He’s the big guy!”
Day 3 --
Tuesday
I called
about 1 PM and actually reached a live operator. When I asked for
the News desk and the Editor, she told me that “Jim”
was out for the day. Since I don’t count myself as one of
“Jim’s” personal friends, I had to confirm that
she was referring to James Rosenthal. Getting frustrated, I
asked if I could leave a message and gave a brief summary of my
concerns about dumping. The operator actually seemed to
recognize what I was talking about, so my mood brightened. She
told me he usually got in between 9:30 and 10 AM and that he
definitely would be in the next day.Later, I decided that she
really didn’t have clue a about what I had called about and
she was just being cheerful and friendly because that was her
job. I felt deflated.
Day
4--Wednesday
A new
day and brimming with hope, I called at 10:02 AM and got a person
in the News room named Martha. I politely said that I was
following up on an email I had sent to the Editor. She said she
didn’t have any idea of where it might be but sending it was
“the proper thing to do.” I briefly summed
up my concerns, mentioning the order that that been signed late
in the day, almost “snuck in,” and she jumped on
me. “Snuck in? Where was it signed?” “Washington,””
I said. “Well, we don’t have the staff to cover
stories in Washington. We look for wire stories.” I
explained that I had provided links including one to an AP story
on April 30. Martha was getting huffy. Was this a letter to
the editor? “No, I want to find out more about this
ruling before I write a letter to the editor,” I chuckled,
trying to appear pleasantly naïve and in need of her
professional help. I continued that I thought it might be a
story that would interest the community since we have mining
interests in this state and a water problem and I was wondering
what the ramifications might be—I volunteered that even
though it involves coal mining in W. Virginia directly, this is
the first major change in the Clean Water Act since the Nixon
Administration.
Well,
Martha was clearly not moved by my concerned citizen approach.
She got testy and she started to cut me off! “Wait,
wait,” I heard myself pleading. “I can check to
see if the email was received,” she snapped and I rushed to
say “There IS a phone number and email address—just so
it can be acknowledged, ” I trailed off, just as she hung
up!! I had wanted to ask why there were no stories on the
latest Enron revelations in California—but it was too late!!
Had I
just experienced stonewalling on the local level?? It sure
felt that way! After 3 days of trying to talk to someone, I
had been rudely and testily dismissed!
Mmm—I
tried to console myself that at least I had put up a good fight.
Reflecting on the past few days, I realized that the high point
of my crusade was my conversation with the sales guy from the New
York Times. I couldn’t help but wonder as I licked my
wounds, did I ever have a chance? After all, the publisher
of the Las Cruces Sun-News is named…. Bush.
Copyright
2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
More
Stuff at: http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical