Ray Clark is a bad reporter

June 23, 2006 Ray Clark wrote
Council says no to Proudian reappointment, says it nears Town Manager decision

There is a lot to discuss in Ray Clark’s reporting in the June 23 issue.

1. First, Ray Clark was not at the meeting on which he is reporting. Remote control journalism is lazy and is fraught with potential errors. Mr. Clark might miss comments uttered by council or citizens who do not speak directly into the mic. He loses the opportunity to ask for clarification of councilors after the meeting. Also, how do we know he was even watching it? The report is already second-hand, purportedly watching it from another location on tv. Mr. Clark could be passing it off as a report but have gotten the information from someone else without even having watched it al all. We just don’t know.

2. “Things got so heated at one point that Foster gaveled the meeting into recess.”

A report should inform. It should be concise, with who-what-where-when-why. This sentence is too general. And why is it general? Because it was Mr. Clark’s friend John Welch who caused the meeting to be recessed. A report that deliberately omits specifics in order to protect his friends is bias of omission.

3. “The Council again refused to clear up the matter of former Town Manager Mitch Berkowitz's departure.”

That’s because it is settled. And at practically every meeting since April, the council has explained why it is settled. Mr. Berkowitz resigned in March. He received his exit money. He got another job. He has been working at this other job for months. But Mr. Clark refuses to believe that it is settled. When a reporter perpetuates an issue that is not newsworthy, is concluded, and has been publicly explained as settled, it’s a bias of personal agenda.

4. “Later, former Councilor John Welch responded to a proposal to establish a new Council rule that an absolute minimum of three bids would be required for any expenditure of more than $10,000 by asking what would happen if only two bids were received, and the answer he got was the same as his wife's: no answer.”

Oh, so wrong. First, there was not a proposal. The chair explained that the night’s business was to reaffirm existing policies. One of those existing policies is the bid policy. It is not "new" and if Mr. Clark had been paying attention, or going to meetings, or reading town source documents, he would know that the council has been following this rule for years.

Second, the council did answer. Maybe Mr. Clark was in the bathroom both times the council answered. Or maybe Mr. Clark was not really watching the meeting on tv at all. Or maybe Mr. Clark did not like the answers that were given. Or maybe Mr. Clark is just lying.

Whatever the reason, the council answered that in the case of the post office bids, they were not sent to commercial brokers as instructed. So the bid was reissued. In the second answer, the council explained that in the case of a truck bid, the bid ended up being too company-specific. In these cases, the bids are reissued.

There is probably plenty more to talk about but just this snippet of one report in one newspaper is enough to demonstrate The Gray News’s failure in reporting, lack of ethics, and bias.