A rebel without a clue...Hah!

If you saw Friday’s Beacon, don’t fret! I am not in violation of anything. While the article gave the impression that I did something wrong, I assure you I didn’t. Well, unless you consider informing the public wrong. The reporter left the story in the board room and printed the opinions of my fellow board members. Then to add insult to injury he printed this statement: Patterson said that all she did was tell a reporter that a contract extension would likely be voted on soon. I didn’t say any such thing. I said a meeting was called by TWO board members and the reporter was notified as the law requires and she was given an agenda with attachments. The attachments are in the blog below. Once the meeting was called the items were given to the media making them an open public record.

It’s reporting like this that leads me to today’s’ Dick Feagler column in the Plain Dealer. He complains that bloggers do not know how to write a story because we aren’t in the trenches like beat reporters are. I admit I have not seen the face of a dead child that appears to be sleeping. Thank God. I don’t need to see it in person to have opinions and feelings about the why and how it happened. Another complaint he makes is that bloggers don’t pull all-nighters with politicians. Maybe it’s just the blogs I read but I see a plethora of functions bloggers attend, then write about. I think what ticks off reporters like Feagler is the fact that bloggers are unrestrained.

Yes you may have the occasional blogger that doesn’t know his or her @$$ from a hole in the ground. But when you find a good reliable blog, you know it. I think Feagler is jealous that bloggers really don’t have a worry in the world when they write. No editors to tell me I’m going to offend people. No finance department complaining that subscriptions are down. Nobody telling me I have to cover this or report on that. No leaning to one side or the other to please the new flavor of the week owner. It’s all me and my blog. I can be serious, I can be funny, I can make fun of people, and I can be sarcastic. I can make up my own words- and I have. I think what really irks him is the fact that I didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars on a college education to do this. And I’m arrogant enough and free enough to dare say that I write better than most, not all but most local reporters. Part of it is because I don’t have the restrictions I talked about above and part of it is because I truly love to do this and see the need.

Back to the Beacon. Just the facts. How you use information has always been a tactic of biased people. Leaving out important facts can be very misleading. For instance, in the example above of a dead child, most people assumed the child met a violent end. What if I were to tell you her heart just stopped? Still a sad story but the facts change your opinions of how and why she died. The beacon left out so many facts in Fridays article that it gives the appearance I did something wrong. I didn’t. And for the record, I spent the beginning of this week pulling all-dayers with our treasurer. She assured me she is not upset about the situation with her contract. I’m sure you wont find that in the Beacon Journal either.