Monday, May 23, 2005

Click on the link to the right of this blog for The Joplin Independent.
As is rapidly becoming the way of journalistic life for this area, the non-mainstream media is leading the way on the important investigative stories that need to be done. Mari Winn has been doing some digging into the Moark situation and provides her readers with information which should have Neosho residents worried.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has stood by and watched while Moark has violated one environmental regulation after another and now the state agency appears poised to reward the company for its transgressions by giving it carte blanche to increase its production and increase its pollution of the area.
Perhaps I was a bit hasty with my remarks about the non-traditional media such as The Joplin Independent, The Turner Report, Lamarmo.com , Neosho Forums, Seneca Forums, and area blogs leading the way in investigate reporting. After all, it was the Neosho Daily News that footed the bill for Managing Editor Buzz Ball to fly to Roggen, Colo., to check out Moark's state-of-the-art facilities there.
After all, if Moark had paid for it, then Ball came back and wrote a glowing puff piece about the facility, that would certainly call his reporting into question, wouldn't it? I have a hard time believing that is the case, though. If such a conflict of interest existed, Ball would most certainly give his readers full disclosure. Anything else would be less than honest.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:58 AM

    Thanks, Randy, for the "heads up." This environmental issue is of grave concern and difficult to convey to area folks who support preserving jobs over preserving the environment until the contaminants rise up and choke or "kill" them...as pertains to the air quality situation in Carthage.

    I hope that the sarcasm I detected in the last paragraph is evident to your readers. You did mean, "After all, if Moark had paid for it, then Ball came back [would have come back] and wrote [written] a glowing puff piece about the facility, that would certainly call his reporting into question, wouldn't it?" It is rather coincidental that Buzz and the mayor touted the same glowing description of the Roggen operation, only the mayor admitted that he didn't have firsthand information. Readers should have seen the photos of Roggen posted at last night's meeting at the Neosho Auditorium that were taken by Lee Van Otterloo after a recent visit. They would without question confirm your sarcasm.

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