The situation is summarized in Owen's piece (read it here) and O'Hare has a rather entertaining version on his own site Lehigh Valley Ramblings (read it here).
Long's letter begins as follows (as posted on O'Hare's site) "What the hell is this county coming to? You legitimize Bernie O'Hare as press, at a meeting that is important to all citizens of this county."
Owen's concludes by writing, "No matter how self-important we news-gatherers may like to be, we're really just information providers. O'Hare is in a similar category, whether Long likes it or not. Unless it's an invitation-only event, O'Hare is free to show up and write whatever he likes, crazy ramblings or not."
O'Hare wound up at the press conference because he did something few citizens do - he attended a County Finance Committee meeting. By being there he was informally invited up to the press conference.
Brad Moulton, who attends school board meetings with Scott Hartner and has been good enough to share information from those meetings on this site, and I recently were discussing how important Committee meetings are and how few people attend. Our discussion arose because Brad and Scott were kiddingly referred to as the press when they were the lone residents at Thursday's Buildings and Grounds meeting. This meeting discussed the bids that were opened that day on the new MS building. Meetings on this issue in January and February drew a full audience (maybe 100 people), yet when it came time to see the figures - there were two.
'Normal' Council or School Board meetings are lucky to get 10-15 people to attend and by that point Committees have already met and made decisions to be voted on by the entire body. The real work is done at committee meetings and no one goes to these.
This site was started for the very simple reason that it provided the means for the few who do attend meetings to share that information with the rest of the community. I had thought more people would be willing to contribute, but at least two main government bodies are covered - Nazareth Council (myself and occasionally Becky Butz) and thanks to Brad, Nazareth School Board (and if you click on the Lower Nazareth Citizen's Link there is good hyper local info on their web site for their municipality).
While it is not as expansive of a coverage I was hoping for, the site remains less than 2 years old, so hopefully more contributors and contributions will be coming.
If you attend meetings of municipalities, authorities, organizations, or associations that relate to the Nazareth area, share that information with the rest of us by sending your notes to me at editor@newsovercoffee.com. If you already post information on your own site, then send me a stub along with the link and home page. By doing this I can make a post for you, provide the copy and the link to your site and I can add your home page to the left sidebar. This should drive traffic to your site, while spreading word of what is happening, going to happen, and did happen in the area.
Some meetings I'd love to have covered in the future:
- Upper Nazareth Township Meetings
- Bushkill Township Meetings
- Lower Nazareth Township Meetings
- Stockertown Borough Meetings
- Tatamy Borough Meetings
- Shafer PTA
- Bushkill PTA
- Lower Nazareth PTA
- Middle School PTO?/PTA?
In closing, as Owens notes, it is about information sharing. The more people, like Bernie, Scott, and Brad who attend meetings and share what they learn, the better off we all will be.
I've not considered my self press when taking notes at meetings. I'm first a citizen and unlike press members, I actively participate in government (I often comment and ask questions during meetings and after them). I don't ask for a press packet or special seating. I take it all in and share every last detail I can record, because something that may not seem important to me, might be to someone else. The more that is shared the better.
Having said that certain blogs and bloggers are receiving more traditional press recognition. Some professional level sports teams are providing bloggers press access. More amazing, the Federal Government's spy agencies, the NSA and CIA have both made recent changes to consider bloggers equal to press.
The CIA recently updated its policies on Freedom of Information Act requests to allow bloggers to qualify for special treatment once reserved for old-school reporters. And last August, the NSA issued a directive to its employees to report leaks of classified information to the media -- "including blogs," the order said. (from ABC News' The Blotter)Every professional journalist and traditional media member I've communicated with has been open to my site and supportive of it. I believe this is because they understand the niche it fills and recognize it is not competition. Instead it is free publicity for them and the content (posts and comments alike) provides a wealth of potential story material.
On the other hand, elected and government officials along with those like Joe Long who have an agenda they want to control, are not so supportive or encouraging of this new information sharing tool. At least they aren't at first. Some are, some come around, and others never will. Many who don't want information shared try to negatively brand the whole of the publishing platform, which is all a blog is (blogger itself is self-described as push button publishing), as illegitimate and make them sound disgusting or of ill-repute - "I don't read those blogs." Others attack the anonymous comments as being "cowardice".
Say what they will, information sharing is only going to grow and expand. This site has put Nazareth far ahead of many other communities in the area of information sharing, but even we have a long way to go to be truly informed. We need our governments and elected officials to come on board and more easily share public information. We need our police to provide map mash-ups of crimes by type, date and location. We need committee meeting reports posted for people to read. We can go the route of audio and video recording of meetings for people to stream from home or to download to an ipod to listen to.
In the end, for a placeblog like NewsOverCoffee, it is about sharing information to help one another build a better community. My thanks to all of you for taking part with me to do so. I've communicated with a lot of great people and expect to do so with even more in the future.
Best wishes and thanks to all of those who read, comment, contribute, and send emails.
3 comments:
Well said and written. I wont comment on the self righteous blowhards.
I appreciate this blog, the information it publishes, and will consider sitting in and reporting on the Tatamy meetings.
I have to agree with tatamite.
For way to long, the press has given the politicians a free ride. They don't ask the tough questions and they rarely hold their feet to the fire.
Bernie is a great example of this with his quest to enforce the Sunshine laws. Without his efforts, I am pretty sure there would still be secret back office meetings making important decisions without the public ever knowing until it was to late.
The blog has become the new media and should be treated that way. My only hope is that the blogger community continues to maintain its independence and does not become corrupted the way the traditional media has.
Thank you for comment, and if you do attend meetings, please know I can either give you credit or post it anonymously - it is up to you.
In regard to the press, I don't think they intentionally let officials off, but because there are fewer dailies (the Morning Call and Express-Times cover a huge territory between the two of them), they can't possibly cover every municipality on a granular level.
Nazareth actually gets a lot more press attention than its population deserves because it is in-between the two and becomes a subscription battleground.
Even with extra coverage, the fact remains they don't have unlimited space. Articles are reduced to one or two topics for either a Council or School Board Meeting.
The absence of public and press makes it very easy for government and officials to be lax with procedures. Having done that over time it is tough to all of a sudden be accountable to everyone within hours of a meeting taking place.
The nice thing about a site that leverages individuals who are sharing information is that one person isn't doing it all and as a result the burden is shared and government is accountable over time (not until the one person burns out).
Bernie supported me when I called the Council on violating the sunshine law and took them to court. This resulted in a positive change of government. There was also a possible violation at the NASD and one of their own board members questioned if they were in violation. It was picked up both here and in the press.
I don't think that would have happened had Bernie's suit not resulted in change.
A blog is simply a publishing system, but one that is readily available and accessible to the masses, which makes it potent.
Other tools exist to encourage information share from file sharing, posting minutes, audio, video, there is a lot happening and a lot of discussion about it.
I don't know if it can be 'corrupted' so long as it relies on community input and activities and remains open to posts and comments.
Went on a bit, but I'm proud of the support and comments I've received and am glad to have Nazareth stand as one of the few communities with its own placeblog. Thanks again!
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