Ball admits Moark paid for trip

Congratulations to Neosho Daily News Publisher Rick Rogers for finally making sure that Editor Buzz Ball put it on the record that Moark paid for the Daily's one-day puff piece trip to Roggen, Colo., to photograph a state-of-the-art egg-laying facility that Moark has in that community.
I commented sarcastically in an earlier posting that it was great for the Daily to pay for the trip, but there was never any doubt in my mind that it was Moark attempting to garner as much favorable publicity for its proposed expansion as it could.
Small daily newspapers have limited financial resources. Believe me, I know. I don't have a great problem with the ethics of accepting the plane ride from Moark. But I have a strong disagreement with two things about the way this situation developed.
One, until today, nearly four months after the initial story the Daily had never said who paid for the trip. If Ball had come right out and said that Moark paid for the trip, that would have been providing information its readers had every right to know. Especially since the article Ball wrote, read like something that would have been written by someone on the Moark payroll.
He also needed to provide some balance to the article, and interview people from Roggen, even if he had to delay putting the photos and article in the Daily. The Roggen article seriously damaged the Daily's credibility on the issue.
The newspaper has bounced back with a strong series of articles, (and I credit that more to John Ford and Rick Rogers than to Ball) exploring every aspect of the Moark issue. The Daily staff has done an outstanding job of playing it down the middle with information coming from both sides. What has been the most remarkable aspect of the series has been the diligent work the Daily's staff has done in attempting to pin down public officials on their views concerning the Moark expansion. Some have come out for it, some have come out against it, and some have tried every weaselly way they could find to avoid taking a stance.
The only weak point of the series has been the inclusion of Ball. His coverage of Moark has been compromised. It would have been a smart move to allow the more-than-capable Ford to take the lead on this series and work with the Daily's younger reporters.
No matter how you look at it, though, the Moark coverage has been a public service.
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A flashback to the May 23 Turner Report:
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.
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A flashback to the May 15 Turner Report:
With a public hearing on the proposed Moark expansion scheduled for next month, I am still perplexed about some earlier coverage of the issue by the Neosho Daily News.
In the Feb. 18 Daily, Editor Buzz Ball wrote about the renowned House No. 6, Moark's facility in Roggen, Colo. I incorrectly assumed at the time, not having seen the actual issue, but only the internet version of the story, that Ball had not been there. I was unaware that photos accompanied the story.
If I had not seen Ball's byline on the article, I would have assumed it was written by Moark's public relations staff. One example: "House No. 6 is a state-of-the-art hen-laying facility that is quickly setting the standard for the industry." The quotes were put around the sentence by me. There were none in the story. This was Ball saying how wonderful the Moark facility was.
Another statement written by Ball, but not attributed to any Moark official: "In Neosho, the byproduct will never be in the outside environment until it is transported by trucks. It will be stored inside and will be transferred to trucks inside." Again, the quotes were added by me to denote that I am quoting from Ball's article. The statement was unattributed.
Yet a third statement: "When the hens lay the eggs, they gently roll onto a smaller white conveyor belt which slowly takes the eggs to a facility where they are further processed for shipping." First, I question whether the sentence refers to the chickens or the eggs (which brings up another debate entirely). Again, I added the quotes. The statement is apparently Ball's since it is not attributed to anyone.
Finally: "The success of House No. 6 has been staggering. More than 97 percent of the eggs at the Colorado facility are ready for human consumption; less than one-half of one percent of the eggs are broken in the entire process; the odor that is usually very apparent at hen-laying facilities is virtually eliminated." Again, this statement is not attributed to anyone. It apparently is Ball saying that this is the way it is. I would have liked to have seen all of these statements attributed to the Moark officials.
The article was written after Ball took a one-day trip to Roggen, on Wednesday, Feb. 9. Ball told me that the story was original "based on interview and first-hand experience."He said, "We flew out from KCI on Frontier Airlines at approximately 10:30 a.m. and returned that evening about 6:45 p.m. So it was a very long day."
This is one of those times when the reader definitely needed to be provided with more information than what Ball's article provided. I will assume that the Daily paid for its editor to make a one-day trip to Roggen, Colo., to report on the Moark facility since it is an important story for its readers. If Moark officials or someone else paid for the trip, the readers have every right to have that information. Even if Moark footed Ball's bill, it does not mean that it bought the coverage by any means. Nevertheless, the reader has to be able to make up his or her own mind and needs to have all of the information in order to do so.
Clearly, the story was advantageous to Moark, being published on the same day that the company announced the proposed expansion of its Neosho facility.In the article announcing the expansion, Ball wrote, "The innovative design planned for the new facility emulates European models, which are renowned for their ability to easily blend into populated urban areas." That statement is not attributed to Moark's Dan Hudgens, though other such statements in the article are.
If the trip was taken Feb. 9, it also means that Ball was fully aware that Moark was going to announce the expansion nine days later. It also means he had time to either collect more information or have one of his reporters do so.
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Buzz Ball waited four months to tell who paid for the trip, something that should have been mentioned front and center from the outset. He owes his readers an apology.