Al Diamon
It’s Not Always Better Late Than Never
The ugly aftermath: The Times Record in Brunswick has finally made mention in its pages of the manslaughter conviction of Topsham selectman-elect Paul S. Bennett Jr.
But the newspaper waited until after Bennett won election to the board on Nov. 4 to put that information in print.
And as with its earlier coverage of this race, the story isn’t posted on the newspaper’s Web site.
(Maybe the editors were hoping I wouldn’t notice the problem if it wasn’t online.) But it does show up in a Nov. 5 article in the print edition that makes mention of Bennett’s conviction in 1996 for killing his infant son. Unfortunately, that mention comes not in the form of an apology from the editors for failing to look into the candidate’s background before the election, but in comments from another selectman, who was himself the subject of TR coverage a few years earlier for his own legal problems.
For a look at the consequences of the local paper’s failure to adequately cover this story, check out this report from WGME-TV, in which several voters say they wouldn’t have voted for Bennett if they’d known about his record.
The beautiful aftermath: The Web site PolitickerME.com did an excellent job this election year of handicapping every contested legislative race in the state. I was somewhat skeptical of this effort early on, knowing from experience how close to impossible it is to get a good read on campaigns for the Maine House and Senate in remote locations – and sometimes, right next door. There are so many factors that can influence the outcome, many of which can’t be easily detected by an outsider, from the candidates’ personalities to the local grapevine to longstanding grudges. Somehow, reporter Jessica Alaimo negotiated around these obstacles to come up with concise – and accurate – assessments on the likely outcome in each district. To see just how accurate, check here.
More news organizations should consider doing something similar, at least in their own areas.
The forgotten aftermath: Not to take away from Auburn Mayor John Jenkins’ many legitimate accomplishments – as reported in a Nov. 6 Lewiston Sun Journal story that came close to gushing – but he was not “the first African-American to be elected to the state Legislature.”
Jenkins was the first of his race to win a state Senate seat in 1996, but that was more than two decades after Gerald Talbot of Portland served in the House.
But don’t take my word for it. It was all in the Portland Press Herald the day before the Lewiston paper got it wrong.
There’s also a pretty good interview with Talbot in the Feb. 25, 2007 Sun Journal. It doesn’t seem to be online, but maybe somebody could look it up in the archives.
The uneasy aftermath: I know times are tough in the news business. I know rival news organizations are now routinely sharing stories and other resources. I’m just a little nervous about nearly every major media outlet in the state being so dependent on one source for their election returns this year.
It seems to have made a lot of reporters and news directors lazy.
It’s not that the Bangor Daily News did a bad job. In fact, the paper’s numbers on election night were fast and accurate, for the most part.
But by relying on the Bangor paper for nearly all their results, other news rooms allowed a few mistakes to slip by – at least one crucial state Senate race had the vote totals for one town reversed, making it appear the wrong person had won – and abandoned any attempt at putting the figures in perspective.
Throughout an evening of flipping channels, I never heard a TV reporter say that most of the early returns were from southern and western Maine, which was probably why the casino vote seemed so close initially, but then widened out as anti-gambling votes poured in from the mid-coast, Penobscot County and eastern Maine later that night.
I never heard an anchor sort through the legislative results to tell viewers if the returns were complete or partial. That meant it was impossible to tell if the numbers flashing on the screen meant anything or not.
I never got any sense of who was voting how and for what reason.
Given the many wasted minutes of airtime devoted to informing viewers about the mood of the crowds at campaign headquarters and how confident the candidates remained, even the ones who were losing by landslides (it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these stories were recycled tape from the last election – or the one before that), couldn’t some resources have been devoted to analyzing the numbers to help the public understand what was happening?
Couldn’t some interns have been dispatched to key precincts to collect data before it got to the BDN?
Couldn’t somebody have done some real reporting?
Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Posted on Thursday, November 6, 2008 in Permalink
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Reader Comments:
i watched the wgme report -there was no mention that voters would not have voted for paul bennett - i voted for him, and would do it again . . .
WGME has replaced the story that contains clips of Topsham residents saying they'd have changed their votes if they'd know of Bennett's conviction with an updated piece on the need for a special election to replace him. I couldn't locate a link to the earlier story.
Al Diamon
By saying some reporters are lazy because they're leaning on the BDN for election results, you're completely ignoring the slashing of editorial staff about which you devote so much copy. Dispatch an intern? Great idea, assuming papers actually have those anymore. Don't share content? Do you think rival publications actually want to do that?
I think your criticism of diminishing news voices is well-placed, but ripping reporters or editors for attempting to get by with limited resources is just wrong.
Unless, of course, you're rant is mostly about TV news. In that case, howl away.
PPH reporter Meredith Goad wrote about Bennett's criminal conviction in her Nov. 1 profile of the Topsham selectman's race. Here's the link: http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=219362&ac=PHnws
Totally unrelated I know. But why is Jennifer Rooks so fascinated with Chellie Pingree being a grandmother AND a mother. Are there a lot of grandmothers who aren't mothers? Am I missing something?
I understand it is somewhat interesting that Pingree is a grandmother. But Rooks puts so much emphasis on the word "and" that it sounds like she is amazed that a grandmother could be a mother at the same time.
WGME was trying to create a riot by reporting the way they did. I know for a fact that they interviewed people who were supportive of Mr. Bennett or said it didn't matter. I thought reporters were supposed to be objective and unbiased. I'm not seeing too much of that at WGME or here.