Collected Works from Weber County Forum, Volume 2

About a year ago I posted a list of my Weber County Forum articles (loosely defined) over the previous three years. Since then the list has approximately doubled in length, so it's time for an update. Here, then, are my contributions since the middle of last June, in reverse chronological order:

• New Developments On and Around Malan's Basin Property (8 June 2010)
• Powder Mountain MOU Hearing Live Blogging (1 June 2010)
• Roosters Celebrates 15 Anniversary (14 May 2010)
• A Sunday Tour of Downtown Ogden (10 May 2010)
• Ogden City Miscellany (9 May 2010)
• 100 Ride in Damp Tour de Drome (1 May 2010)
• Mayor Vetoes Searchlight Ordinance (23 April 2010)
• Ogden's Transit Choices (6 April 2010)
• RAMP Funds Dog Park and Adventure Park, Not Velodrome (27 March 2010)
• Standard-Examiner: 36th Street Tank Closer to Reality (15 February 2010)
  
• Herbert Can Get More Than $10,000 for Political Favors (11 February 2010); follow-up (19 February 2010)
• Live-Blogging the City Council Water Tank Decision (2 February 2010)
• Ogden City Council Report (15 December 2009)
• Standard-Examiner: Candidates' Final Reports Filed (11 December 2009)
• Standard-Examiner Letter: Many Ethical Breaches in Ogden (3 December 2009); follow-up (11 December 2009)
• Live-Blogging the Streetcar Stakeholder Meeting (19 November 2009)
• Standard-Examiner: City OKs Use of Eminent Domain (19 November 2009)
• Bits and Pieces from Last Night's Emerald City Council Meeting (18 November 2009)
• Lifties and Smarties (13 November 2009)
• Is Candidate Mark Hains in Violation of Finance Disclosure Ordinance? (30 October 2009)
• Standard-Examiner: Tax Increment District Extended (14 October 2009)
• Live-Blogging City Council Decision on Junction Tax Increment Extension (13 October 2009)
• Be Honest, Fair, and Conservative (12 October 2009)
• Brief Report on City Council Candidates Forum (6 October 2009)
• Standard-Examiner Editorial Board Afraid of Mayor (28 September 2009); follow-up (3 October 2009)
• Saturday Evening News Roundup (19 September 2009)
• Vision Meets Reality (25 August 2009)
• The Junction: What Next? (7 August 2009)
• Live-Blogging the Big Veto Override (4 August 2009)
• The Junction -- A Good Investment? (29 July 2009)
• Junction 101 (27 July 2009)
• Live-Blogging the Transit Management Committee Meeting (9 July 2009)
• Scott Schwebke Fleshes Out the Budget Veto Story (9 July 2009)
• Court Orders Ogden to Explain Status of Missing Records (7 July 2009)
• Live-Blogging from the Planning Commission Chamber (1 July 2009)
• The Ogden City Run-Around (27 June 2009)
• Live-Blogging from the Emerald City Planning Commission (17 June 2009)

A Case Study in Blogging vs. Traditional Journalism

One reason I haven’t posted anything here in a while is because I’ve been working on a series of three long articles for Weber County Forum, about Ogden’s Junction development. This personal blog was never intended as a substitute for WCF, and most of my writing on local politics will continue to go over there.

But I’d like to comment here on how this episode illustrates the tense-yet-fruitful relationship between blogs and the traditional media. In Ogden the situation is extra simple, because the town has only one daily newspaper (the Standard-Examiner) and only one active political blog (Weber County Forum).

This particular story started as a rumor that I heard about a Taxing Entity Committee meeting that was held on June 25. I could have simply passed this rumor on to a reporter at the S-E, but I’ve learned through experience that they follow up on such things less than half the time. So I got a copy of the meeting minutes from the city recorder and forwarded them to blogmeister RudiZink, who broke the story on WCF on July 14.

During the ensuing discussion in the comment thread under that story, I got curious enough to look up some tax information on the county’s web site. That information made me even more curious.

The S-E finally printed its own story on July 19, and by then I was hooked. So I contacted several city and county officials over the next two weeks, asking question after question until I was satisfied with the answers. My three long-winded articles describe what I learned.

Meanwhile, the S-E has chimed in with three articles of its own that complement mine nicely, taking a closer look at the progress toward finally opening the Earnshaw building, the status of the Junction apartment leases, and the city’s continuing hopes to lure a hotel developer.

So how do the roles of the traditional news source (S-E) and the blog (WCF) differ? In this case, the S-E did a much better job of finding and quoting multiple authorities with different perspectives on the issue. On the other hand, WCF focused on hard evidence (meeting minutes and tax records), in-depth analysis (with tables and graphs), and connecting the dots together. The S-E articles were mostly up-beat, with hopeful promises for the future. WCF documented the broken promises of the past.

In many respects these roles were typical. The S-E hardly ever looks at actual documents or does any arithmetic or produces an original graph or even reminds readers of what was said in its own articles a year or two ago. And WCF hardly ever seeks out a diversity of viewpoints.

In one respect, though, this episode wasn’t typical. Usually the S-E will break a news story, and WCF will follow-up with detailed analysis and commentary. In this case WCF is way out ahead, and the S-E is playing catch-up.

No matter what your opinion of the newspaper and the blog, it’s clear that this city needs both.

Update, 20 August 2009:  The Standard-Examiner has continued its coverage of the Junction financial situation with an especially sloppy article that is misleading in several ways and omits some key information. My comment under the article points out several of its shortcomings.

Collected Works from Weber County Forum

It’s now just over three years since I began blogging on Weber County Forum, and that’s still where I’m putting most of my political writing.  Today’s article, on Ogden’s utility rates, adds another to this growing list.

Oddly, Blogspot doesn’t seem to provide an easy way of pulling up all articles by a particular author. So for my own convenience, and that of anyone else out there who might want to see what I’ve written over this time, here is a mostly complete list of my Weber County Forum articles. (With one exception, this list includes only articles—not the hundreds of comments that I’ve posted over the years.)

• Ogden’s rising utility rates (13 June 2009)
  
• City council amends campaign ordinance (10 June 2009)
  
• How to lawfully conceal the source of campaign funds (27 May 2009)
  
• Ogden streetcar study update:  Has the process already jumped off-track? (2 May 2009)
  
• Southeast Bench Water System Improvements Preliminary Design Report (30 April 2009)
  
• Godfrey administration attempts to defend water system plans (8 April 2009)
  
• Envision Ogden 2007 municipal election corruption update (27 March 2009)
  
• Golf course plans include condos on city and WSU land (20 March 2009)
  
• The Ogden velodrome fantasy (15 March 2009)
  
• Criminal wrongdoing in the 2007 Ogden City Council campaign (3 March 2009)
  
• Campaign finance reform needed right here in Ogden (27 February 2009)
  
• More about the Ice Tower and that “anonymous $63,000 donation” (8 February 2009)
  
• Utah Supreme Court decides in favor of open records (24 December 2008)
  
• The Malan’s/Strong’s clearcutting:  What Chris Peterson is really up to (19 December 2008)
  
• This Democrat is supporting Brent Wallis in Legislative District 10 (29 October 2008)
  
• Ogden crime statistics ... without the Godfrey distortions (22 September 2008)
  
• Powder Mountain update: Open letter to the Weber County Commission (11 July 2008)
• Decision time looms for the Ogden Ice Tower (29 May 2008)
  
• Ogden City Council work session on transit planning (16 May 2008)
  
• Letter to the Weber County Commission responding to claims about the streetcar (8 May 2008)
  
• Envision corruption (4 November 2007)
  
• Ogden for rent (13 September 2007)
  
• Pure Genius (2 August 2007)
  
• How to promote (and how not to promote) Ogden (29 June 2007)
  
• A classic story of the abuse of government power (13 May 2007)
  
• Administration pushes forward on Peterson land grab (4 April 2007)
  
• My first Weber County Forum comment, on the “tall tales” of the Peterson proposal (2 June 2006)

Although some of these articles were written with the intent that they be placed on the Weber County Forum front page, others were originally posted as comments and were bumped to the front page by blogmeister Rudi. Rudi also wrote some of the titles and did some additional editing, just as a newspaper editor would.

Laughing at Politics

Last night I had some fun at the city council meeting, reading a modest proposal for how a candidate can conceal the source of campaign contributions.  Sometimes politicians are so dense that they don’t understand anything short of ridicule.

Even John Patterson laughed out loud.

Gary Williams told me on the way out of the room that I’m “a petty man”.  At least I got his attention.

The writeup in the Standard-Examiner is humorless, of course.