Post reporter Disagreeing with Dan
If I ever get the chance to add links to whatever blogs I choose on Platypus, the only blog produced by the rival paper I plan on linking to is Bullfight by former Chico councilman Dan Nguyen-Tan.
I admire Nguyen-Tan for his humor, (probably beats me) continuous blog maintenance (me and him are right on par there) and his ability to pick a fun name. (I personally think I've got him topped — but it's up for debate whether I overtake fellow VOTR blog DragonFlight).
Basically, I consider myself and Nguyen-Tan to be two of the best bloggers in this county.
However, I'm needing to call him out on his post dealing with the recent beat-swapping that is happening at the Chico Enterprise-Record after reporter Roger Aylworth spoke during public comment at the Aug. 22 Board of Supervisors meeting — a meeting he was covering.
It's a meeting I was covering, too. In fact, I was sitting no more than 3 feet from the podium when Aylworth spoke the words that caused Ridge supervisor Kim Yamaguchi to go major-league ballistic in the middle of a public meeting.
If you find a video copy of the meeting through cable-access Channel 11, you might even be able to see me while Aylworth is talking. I would be on the left side of the screen, furiously scribbling in my trusty reporter's notebook.
I wrote a story on the incident in the Aug. 24 edition of The Post. Unfortunately that story wasn't chosen to go online, so it's only available in print.
Two other journalists--Mike Baca of KPAY 1290 AM and my editor Rick Silva--were also in the room during at least some of Aylworth's actions that day.
Anyways, in his post, Nguyen-Tan basically gives off an aura of "what's the big deal?" about Aylworth violating a stalwart rule of Reporting 101:
I tend to disagree when (E-R editor David) Little writes: “That's another thing we journalists know and embrace: We are observers. We are not participants.”Actually, I think journalists are both observers and participants, or participant-observers as the street-level sociologists like to say. I think journalists like to think the public perceives them as simply observers providing objective news coverage.
The ER certainly covers the news, but it also helps create the news by the daily choices its reporters and editors make. The ER covers the public agenda-setting by local leaders and community members, but it’s also an agenda-setting institution too.
If people out there are agreeing with this, Nguyen-Tan might want to consider going into the bridge-selling business in a certain borough of New York City.
The Little column Nguyen-Tan references is here.
I don't feel like embarrassing Roger any further than I know he already is about this whole thing, plus I respect the fact that he's been a reporter in this county longer than I've been alive by as much as a decade, but I do have to point out what was wrong with what he did in order to make my point about Nguyen-Tan's statements.
If people think politicians are held under a microscope, try being a reporter. Every second you're working, you can feel the eyes on you, watching you, waiting for you to slip up so they can use your mistakes to your advantage.
Roger gave an opinion that was in opposition to numerous building-industry representatives and realtors in the audience. If he had tried to then write a story on it, all those people and their friends could say, "Hey, but he spoke against us in the meeting! There's no way we're getting a fair shake in this story that many, many people are going to read."
It's also fair to argue that any questions asked about Roger's neutrality would have repercussions not only on what Roger writes, but his fellow reporters as well. I've felt this firsthand—people complain to me or refuse to talk to me because of something somebody at The Post did or said before I started working there. (maybe even before I was born)
Guilt by association, basically — I would imagine Nguyen-Tan felt some of that in the time he spent in politics.
People believe bad things about newspaper reporters enough, regardless if they have anything more than their own personal judgments void of fact to work off of. Any incidents that might give them reason to further cement those beliefs have to be dealt with.
It's also fair to argue that if the media can't self-regulate, the public will regulate by not reading, listening or watching. That creates the danger of having a less-knowledgeable public (what other methods of information reception have proven to be as efficient), which creates the danger of having a less-free society, which the public has generally demonstrated they would prefer not to have.
A majority of journalists take to heart a belief that they can help maintain that free society by making all efforts to be objective in their reporting, offering multiple arguments a fair opportunity to be demonstrated though what they produce. While people will obviously disagree that is the truth — I'm getting the vibe that Nguyen-Tan is among them — the media can't be faulted for making efforts to maintain the belief, such as transferring one of their own when they've shown cause for the public to further question that objectivity than they would otherwise.
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On a slightly different subject, Nguyen-Tan's "participant-observer" argument is interesting, but I'd also throw this out:
Could all observers be participants?
Are there varying levels of participation?
Does one form of participation outweigh another?
Does speaking at a public meeting make someone more of a participant?
How high is up?
Why doesn't Nguyen-Tan think reporters can subjectively choose to report objectively?
That's street-level sociology for you.
