The school district was not even mentioned in Editor Carol Stark's column; it did not need to be.
From her lofty perch in the Joplin Globe building, fresh from another day of dealing with the elites in the upper echelon of our city, Mrs. Stark penned a column outlining the Globe's policy when it comes to anonymity- It's beneath them.
The column won't be posted on the Globe website until later in the week, so I will provide a link at that point. She began by writing about the newspaper's policy of not printing anonymous letters to the editor, then she gets into the meat of what she has to say:
You might have noticed that, with few exceptions, we don't use anonymous sources in our news stories either. Again, it goes to the credibility of the story. In some cases, interviews with victims of sexual abuse of the elderly who worry about being identified because they live alone- we indicate we are not using the name.
Judging from the Globe's lack of interest in the swirling stories surrounding the Joplin R-8 School District, anonymous teachers and other district employees who will almost certainly lose their jobs or face severe punishment if their identities are revealed are not worthy of their having their stories pursued by the area's newspaper of record. Thankfully, the view from my apartment is not the same as the one from Mrs. Stark's ivory tower. I still talk to people every day who live from paycheck to paycheck and cannot take a chance on coming forward so they can meet Mrs. Stark's lofty standards and lose their means of supporting themselves and their families.
The type of attitude exemplified in Mrs. Stark's column makes it a virtual certainty that the only ones who will ever get their stories told in the Joplin Globe are the rich and the powerful and those who are privileged enough to be friends with the ones who are making the decisions at the newspaper.
At the end of her column, Mrs.Stark offers an avenue for those who know their bosses are doing something illegal. "We are willing to go to jail to protect a source's identity."
With the attitude expressed earlier in her column, I doubt that will ever be a problem.
2 comments:
So, let's say employees were being harassed or discriminated against by a powerful employer or corrupt community official. Going by Stark's guidelines, those people would only be able to go to the media if they were willing to give their names and put themselves in harm's way.
Gee, that makes a lot of sense. Good job, Globe, good job.
That explains why there is nothing worth reading in the Globe, doesn't it. Not many will risk being fired or hurt to give them stories. It really is only worth the coupons it provides on Sunday and Wednesday. The rest is fluff, and for real news, you'll get better material for free from major news sources online.
Post a Comment