All the news that’s fit to omit
Posted: January 9, 2012 Filed under: Journalism, news 1 Comment »
Tools of the t(i)rade
I had an interesting exchange via facebook today about one of my pet peeves — the dying art of legwork in journalism.
I’m not talking about online research or phone interviews. I’m talking about getting off your ass and making the rounds of city hall, the courthouse, the cop shop or wherever you beat ought to take you.
I was harping about the tendency of young journalists to rely too much on virtual coverage. In other words, the Internet and telecommunications.
A colleague pointed out — and rightfully so — that technology should serve as a complement to good old fashioned legwork.
I agreed and admitted that, dinosaur that I am, I have come to embrace technology. I’ve come to realize that it’s a good thing. As long as it’s not the only thing.
Sadly, the increasing demands of the job have forced us to rely on technology more and more. Journalists everywhere are being pushed to be more “productive.” It’s come to the point that a lot of journalists, myself included, are being pressed to perform menial tasks once handled by typists and office managers. Consequently, we can’t do our jobs effectively and the process and the product suffer.
Right along with the people’s right to know.
My picks for top news stories of 2011
Posted: January 4, 2012 Filed under: Journalism Leave a comment »
It didn't have a name, but I got the feeling he called it "lunch."
At the end of the year, most newspapers regurgitate their top stories in the form of top-ten compilations. Which comes in handy during those slow news days around the holidays.
In the course of going through the stories I wrote last year, I found a few that really stood out. But not for reasons that would qualify them for the Ashland Times-Gazette’s Top Ten Stories of 2011.
I’ll share them here with a little running commentary.
• In March 2011, two Amish cousins were busted for drag-racing in their horse-drawn buggies near Savannah, Ohio. One of the buggies struck an oncoming car and overturned. No one was hurt in the crash. The Amish men were on their way to church. Not surprisingly, this story went viral, making international news.
• In May, two men were arrested after they stole a piggy bank from a local restaurant. Employees had placed the bank on the counter to collect donations to help people diagnosed with cancer. There’s a special place in hell for these guys.
• In July, Ashland Police responded to what I jokingly referred to in the story as a “Code 18A — a wild turtle on the prowl.” A woman called police to report that a large turtle was approaching her house. The softshell turtle had escaped from a turtle trapper in the neighborhood, who also happened to be the mayor’s nephew. Mayor Glen Stewart heard the call on a police radio in his office and knew right away what had happened.
• My favorite story happened in November. I was at my desk and a call came across the scanner from a sheriff’s deputy urgently requesting backup. He was investigating four suspicious characters in a pickup truck near a wooded area by Charles Mill Lake. One of the men got into a scuffle with him. The fight ended when the deputy threatened to zap the suspect with a Taser. Before the dust settled, the scene was bumper-to-bumper with police cruisers from five different law enforcement agencies. I wasn’t going to do a full story at first, but it just kept getting better and better. Turns out the guys were cutting trees on public land and got a chain saw bar stuck. Two of them had outstanding warrants. However, it was originally thought that the warrant one guy had was outside the pickup radius, so the officers cut him loose. When a Mansfield Police officer arrived, they found out he also had a warrant from that jurisdiction. The officers jumped into their cruisers and pursued the pickup truck down State Route 603, pulled it over and arrested him. In addition to arresting two guys on outstanding warrants, citations also were issued for damaging the trees and littering. One of the suspects had tossed a Mountain Dew can on the ground during the initial investigation.
• Also in November, State Highway Patrol troopers from the Ashland post arrested a woman twice in the same night for OVI. Seems she had been released to a “responsible” party. When she went to retrieve items from her vehicle at the impound lot, someone saw her get behind the wheel of the vehicle of the person who had come to give her a ride home. The witness notified the Highway Patrol and a trooper stopped her in nearly the same spot where she was originally arrested. The second time around, she was not released to a “responsible” party but taken straight to jail.
• In August, Sheriff’s deputies arrested a man who took his mom’s pickup truck and trashed cornfields, turfed yards, and stole signs and lawn ornaments in western Ashland County. They were able to trace him through a trail of mud and corn stalks, finding the truck ditched in the yard of a friend. Turns out the friend, a juvenile, had been along for at least part of the ride.
Scuttled Vessel
Posted: December 28, 2011 Filed under: Environment, freelance writing, Journals, Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Enameled steel pot in a small brook. I wonder whether the rusting was helped with a few rounds of buckshot.
Normally, any kind of litter in a stream annoys me. But there’s something about antiquities like this that have a certain charm.
It was once common practice for farmers and country folk to dump trash into ravines. Some still do.
I remember helping friends clean out a dump behind their farmhouse in Central Ohio. It was a great social occasion, sort of like a barn raising. Only dirtier.
Plus, it was kind of interesting unveiling a rusted, tattered mosaic of the lives of people who once lived there.
Read Any Good Shop Manuals Lately?
Posted: December 27, 2011 Filed under: freelance writing, Journals Leave a comment »A few days back, Timothy Gorka of the Book Loft Literati mentioned on facebook that he’d received a copy of “Shop Class as Soulcraft” for Christmas.
Given my blue-collar background, the title caught my attention. I did a quick online search to see what it was about. The author, Matthew B. Crawford, is an academic who runs a motorcycle repair shop in Virginia. The book, which is subtitled “An Inquiry Into the Value of Work,” is about how America undervalues blue-collar workers.
It reminds me of one of my old Cleveland friends, Andy Kessler.
Andy is college-educated. Unlike a lot of us, he actually has a degree. But he decided to go into auto mechanics.
For those of us who drove marginally road-worthy vehicles, Andy was a savior. (All right, my ’53 Chevy with no floorboards and the gas tank in the trunk was marginally marginal.) He had a talent for inexpensive fixes. I once saw him use a torch to neutralize the rust in a taillight bulb socket.
Andy had an apartment on Hessler Street that served as party central. We were a loose-knit group with more creativity than sense. A lot of times, our tribal gatherings escalated into theme parties.
Cardboard parties were popular for awhile. You could bring anything you wanted, as long as it was made out of corrugated cardboard. Probably the most outrageous contribution was an operating car chassis with a body made entirely of cardboard boxes.
I went to one Halloween party dressed as Andy — complete with long black hair, a full beard and garage duds with a patch on the pocket with Andy’s name on it.
A lot of people went along with the gag and I spent most the night fielding automotive questions. If nothing else, I learned that MDs aren’t the only ones who get pinned down at parties by people trolling for free professional advice.
Afterward I came up with an idea for another theme party — a “come-as-you-aren’t” party. The idea was that everyone would come dressed as someone else among the regulars who hung out at Andy’s apartment or frequented his parties.
But, over the years, we all went our separate ways and it never got past the “big talk in a little bar” stage.
Too bad. It would have been a real eye-opener to see yourself as your friend’s see you.
Maybe too much of an eye-opener.
Ohio $tate Park$ go ‘green’
Posted: March 30, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Fracking, Mohican River Leave a comment »
Going camping in Ohio State Parks? With marcellus oil drilling rigs around, you won't need a lantern at night.
This is testimony against proposed legislation to facilitate hydraulic fracturing in Ohio’s state parks, forests and other public land. I plan to present it tonight before the Ohio House Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee. This legislation is on a fast track and could even be voted on this week. I urge you to contact committee members now. I’ve attached a PDF with their contact info.
I grew up in inner city Cleveland in the late ’50s and early ’60s. We lived on West 40th Street, literally a stones-throw from Cleveland Electro Metals. At night, we could look out the kitchen window and see workers silhouetted in the orange glow of the huge furnace where they melted down sheet metal from old airplanes and buses.
It was a smelly, noisy and unhealthy place to grow up. But my father worked hard to make a better life for us. He made it a point to take two weeks off every summer and take us to East Harbor State Park.
I lived for those two weeks. I looked forward to camping, hiking through the woods and exploring the marshes and the lakeshore. The fresh air — the smell of grasses, flowers and trees — was delightfully foreign to me. Sound was a unique experience too. There was no constant rumble of machinery or jarring clang of metal dropping from overhead cranes. There was silence, with interludes of birds singing and frogs croaking. You could even hear insects buzzing.
I lived most of my adult life in the city, but I never lost that connection with nature. Even during difficult times in my life, I often returned to find solace at East Harbor State Park and later Mohican State Memorial Forest.
Fourteen years ago, I got the opportunity to move to the Mohican area. I jumped at it. I feel so lucky to live in a place that’s special not just to those who live there but to hundreds of thousands of other Ohioans who come here for recreation and to spend quality time with their families.
I’m nearly 60 years old. I’ve resigned myself to living out the rest of my life in the Mohican area, enjoying the parks, forests and rivers. In my worst nightmare, I never thought I’d find myself desperately struggling to save it from being industrialized virtually overnight.
Make no mistake about it, that’s exactly what this proposed legislation would do. Once that Pandora’s box is opened, there will be no closing it. Once the heavy equipment rolls in, the ground is opened up and toxic chemicals injected, it will never be the same. Some of it will start looking all-too-familiar — like the smelly, noisy, dangerous inner city world I grew up in.
Our state parks and forests would become fragmented, industrialized and lost forever to future generations.
Please don’t let that become your legacy.
I’m urging you to vote against this measure. CommitteelistHouseandSenate
Scam letter alert
Posted: March 14, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Fracking, news, Uncategorized Leave a comment »Here, in the form of two PDFs (because I couldn’t figure out how to make it one) is a “testimonial” a representative of Quebec Energy, a Dubai-based gas drilling company, gave a prospective lessor in Richland County over the weekend.
It’s indicative of the hard-sell tactics being employed by drillers.
Pay close attention to the last paragraph.
A (Groucho) Marxist Manifesto
Posted: March 12, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Join GMAS or the mourning dove gets it.
This is a column I wrote for the Greater Mohican Audubon Society newsletter. I’m putting it on my blog as an invitation to those who live in and/or love this area to join.
GMAS wants you
I’m a Marxist. A Groucho Marxist.
I’ve always lived by the Groucho creed: I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.
But, in the case of the Greater Mohican Audubon Society, I’ve made an exception. Mainly because this is one club where your politics, religion, lifestyle and income level – or lack thereof – don’t matter. We’re an informal bunch bound by two things, our love for nature and our love for the Mohican area.
That’s what brought me to Mohican country in the first place, moving here after decades of wandering aimlessly in an urban environment. A few years after I migrated here from Columbus, some folks from the area started a local Audubon chapter. I was delighted.
Being an accomplished procrastinator, it took me several more years to join. I was lured by the prospect of editing the newsletter. (I mentioned in a previous column that my decision might have been jogged by a few Margaritas consumed at a Mexican restaurant that day, but “Audubon at Home” columnist Jan Kennedy disputes that account.)
Regardless, I volunteered to fill a void created when former newsletter editor Su Snyder stepped down after six years of dedicated service.
That’s normal for clubs like this. People have other commitments or they move on with their lives and no longer have time to participate. Which is what I’m getting at here. Like any other club, GMAS needs new blood. Not just new members, but a few more people to play more active roles.
Please invite people you know who are interested in the area and its natural splendor to join GMAS. And, if you’re already a member, please consider playing a more active role in whatever capacity you can.
To learn more, just come to a board meeting. They’re usually scheduled in conjunction with bird walks or other fun stuff – including lunch. Sorry, no Margaritas.
Meeting dates are posted on the calendar, which is also available online at www.gmasohio.org/
GASPLAND – Post-industrial tourism in Mohican Country
Posted: March 5, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Fracking, Mohican River, news 1 Comment »News item: The Ohio Legislature is considering a bill to facilitate oil and gas drilling on state lands.
Coming soon - our version of beachfront property
Nothing new here. This has been a perennial issue in Ohio and other states. Legislators, whose campaigns are bankrolled by oil and gas interests, love to trot this out when the stars align favorably. In other words, when the economy is tanking and energy prices are surging.
This is kind of like those remote backwater countries you read about where people become so destitute they have to sell their own children to survive. Except, in this case, the legislators want to sell your children.
Until now, cooler heads have prevailed when this issue has come up. Legislators beholden to gas and oil interests haven’t had the votes to push it through. After all, it’s kind of a tough sell when there are still a few conscientious legislators in the room whose idea of a day at the beach doesn’t involve frolicking along the shores of a festering gas well wastewater pit.
What’s different this time around is the ominous threat of bringing wholesale hydraulic fracturing to Ohio’s state forests and parks. In spite of what industry shills — including politicians and their bureaucrats on the county level — are telling us, this is dirty, noisy and dangerous business. Besides, it’s not nearly as lucrative for lessors as they would have you believe.
You’ll see the same high-pressure sales tactics used time after time. Industry representatives and their front men — including state and county bureaucrats and starry eyed landowners bent on making a quick buck — come in and repeat the mantra: “Gas drillers have been doing this for 60 years and there has not been one incident of water well contamination.”
Well, that’s a lie. Just ask our neighbors in Pennsylvania. They have plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise, much of it too well-documented to dismiss as anecdotal or coincidental.
The truth is, this is not your daddy’s hydraulic fracturing. Today’s version is recently developed technology using higher pressure, horizontal boring covering great distances, consuming millions of gallons of water and spewing tons of hazardous substances into the air, land and water.
So far, Ohio media seem to have turned a blind eye to this. Few I’ve seen have questioned the drilling proponents’ “safe-as-milk” spiel. But then, Pennsylvania is a world away. And, in our neck of the woods, word travels slowly.
Here in Mohican Country, we’re getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our canoe livery industry. Like every other summer, people will flock here to enjoy the river, the scenery and our 5,000-acre Mohican Memorial State Forest.
If the gas and oil industry — and the politicians they own — get their way, we’ll have a lot more to offer vacationers in the future. Our forest, parks and countryside will be dotted with toxic wastewater lagoons, drilling pads covering 5-10 acres and turbines the size of Winnebagos. (The turbines are used for pressurizing gas lines.) Our roads will be choked with convoys of tractor-trailers servicing well-drilling and waste-removal operations. With all that noise and commotion going on 24/7, city dwellers visiting Mohican Country will feel right at home. And, because it takes millions of gallons of water to open up each well, the rivers and lakes around here will be so shallow that tourists won’t have to worry about their kids drowning. Not even if they stand on their heads.
Our counties and townships will be more than glad to underwrite the cost for wear and tear on the roads to accommodate the new “industriotourism.” And our local emergency service providers will be prepared to handle new challenges. (The gas and oil companies will try to buy their silence by donating a few thousand bucks here and there for a new ambulance or HazMat gear.)
Of course, we’ll need a catchy slogan consistent with our new image. How about: Mohican Country — Frack to Nature!
Eagle?
Posted: February 27, 2011 Filed under: Environment, Mohican River 2 Comments »
While at Charles Mill Dam yesterday, I saw what I thought was my first turkey vulture of the year.
I didn’t get a good look at it, but was able to snap this photo. When I got home and looked at it on the computer, it looked more like an immature bald eagle.
What do you think?
Baseline water quality testing – do it now
Posted: February 25, 2011 Filed under: Canoeing, Environment, Fracking Leave a comment »This is another post in the continuing saga of the “Gold Rush of 2011,” i.e. the mad dash by Mohican area landowners to sign away their mineral rights to natural gas speculators.
I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog that attorneys speaking at a fracking informational session in Wooster on Wednesday night said that, if people are concerned about the potential for groundwater contamination, they should get their water tested now for chemicals and heavy metals.
This is for if and when extensive hydraulic fracturing in our area will poison our wells. Given Pennsylvania’s experience, for some, it will only be a question of when.
The attorneys stressed that testing needs to be done by a third-party lab. That includes gathering the samples, a very important point for legal reasons. As I recall, the price range is $60-$300.
That said, the experience elsewhere has been that, even when the cause and effect of groundwater contamination is obvious, the drilling companies deny the connection.
Even though the ju$ti¢e system would be stacked in favor of the companies, at least this will give you some evidence if it comes to litigation. Failing that, a typical scenario would be that the companies would truck in water for you.
Face it folks, life won’t be the same around here.
