Goodbye editorial: good example of bad editor

The goodbye editorial was no doubt heartfelt to Raymond P. Clark, as the ex-editor of the Gray News confirms he is leaving for good. I am positive he feels -and will continue to feel -the loss of his daily routine and the baby that is his weekly 8 page newsletter.

He spent a lot of time and energy thanking people in this piece, which usually weekly swings from ‘poisonous tirade’ to ‘aw shucks I love this town and my grandkids, not in that order.’ Thanking people in a goodbye editorial, or in any goodbye, is normal. However, the gaping omission that Mr. Clark left in this last chance editorial was a great example of why it is good that he goes.

He thanked his Board of Directors, who initially hired him. He thanked his staff and volunteers. That was nice. He thanked his wife, also very nice.

Then...strangely, he thanked the Town Managers his tenure coincided with. Managers? Why is a newspaper thanking the government? And oddly, he went on to thank the councilors, too. More government gratitude.

Last time I looked, newspapers were supposed to be watchdogs of government, not thankful to them.

And then he ended. But he forgot to thank the only ones who make it all possible. Readers. And some of those readers are actually also, advertisers. Not one thank you. Not a thanks. Not even an offhand ‘tx’. Readers got bupkis.

Thanking government for the news and not the readers for reading it is a perfect example of how an editor’s priorities get messed up when he allows his paper to become a pocket publication. He's just been too much in the pocket of the very government he’s supposed to be watching, and now he's so inordinately grateful to them he even excludes his readers. But that is fitting, because none of his other editorials were ever citizen focused, either. And that is sad.

So, yes, it is time to go. And he went. And it was good.

I am hopeful

With the Gray News's sale, Editor Ray Clark's quitting, Nathan Tsukroff's welcome distance from the reporting world, and several Directors' retirement, I am hopeful that The Gray News will make a turnaround to being the clean, upstanding paper it once was.

The Gray News was there first and is really the rightful paper of Gray. It lost that rightful place in methods of their own choosing, when they abused the populace with their lies and bias. However, there is always room for improvement and I am hopeful that the Gray News will once again report the news in unbiased, well-written, less caustic and sarcastic manner now that new people will be coming around.

That said, I think it was a huge mistake for Current Publishing to take The Monument out of Gray. And a huge mistake for the Gray News to move to New Gloucester, just because that was where the free rent was. A town should have its paper, and the paper should be front and center and visible to all, part of the important transparency that gives credibility in the news business.

I think the Gray News should move back into the Village. Establish a presence there and begin to re-connect with the community it once loved, observed, and provided important unbiased information to. And in return, the community can once again embrace its own paper that it loved so well for those many years.

How about it?

Back to the beginning

Ray Clark is leaving the Gray News. Good. The Gray News can be restored to its once glittering and currently Clark-tarnished original intent. And here is the original intent, verbatim from original editor Cliff Foster in Gray News volume 1 number 1, January 1969.

“It has been demonstrated in the past, and more recently at the Gray Community Betterment meeting, that some type of informative newsletter, publication, or whatever, is needed to keep people in the Town of Gray more fully informed as to events and meetings which affect the community.”
“Such a publication could (1) serve as a medium of relaying facts and information, and (2) provide means of publishing sentiments and ideas of anyone who so desired, through a “Letters to the Editor” section. A calendar of events could also be inserted by local organizations, in addition to a school calendar.…At any rate it is believed to be a worthwhile venture.”

The Gray News relaying facts and information. What a worthwhile venture. Won’t that be nice?

Quiz! Answer:

What’s missing from the Gray News’s list of personnel, I’d asked a few days ago. Can you guess? Someone did correctly. A REPORTER!

Isn’t that the funniest thing in the world?! A “newspaper” without a listed reporter! So that’s why there’s no news in the Gray News. No reporting. In other words, it’s either a booster paper with delusions of grandeur, or it’s a newspaper without a clue. Either way, it’s a “don’t read.”

Quiz! What's missing!?

From the Gray News online's masthead, listing the crew:

Managing Editor: Ray Clark
Typist: Lorraine Jones
Ad Layout: Marilyn Porcaro
Office: Cindy Saunders
Proof Reader: Mary Bosse
Circulation: Lorraine Jones

What is missing from this picture?
I'll give you one guess!
;)

Open letter to Mr Clark

I've said it before...but an editor needs to be many things to a community. Whistleblower, watchdog, cheerleader, nurse, inspirational visionary. But all Ray Clark knows how to do is grump. To wit, his latest grumpy editorial in the December 8 issue. It opens like this:

"Here's a Christmas present from the Gray Town Council to the people of Gray Dispatch: a pink slip. And here's a Christmas present from Gray Dispatch and a thousand of their friends to the Gray Town Council: a red flag."

Does that make you want to keep reading? Not me. And it's old news now and will be news again in May: you would think there never have been or ever will be any issues in town other than Dispatch. How about editorializing on issues that affect more than your friend's brother, Mr. Clark?

The Gray News grumpy old stubborn editor missed editorializing on the Fiddlehead Center for the Arts presentation to the Council and Village Master Plan Committee, plans which are astounding and wonderful. He missed editorializing on the new gallery that opened up in Gray at 12 Main Street, to which local artists sold pieces and to which many residents visited. He missed editorializing on the wonderful town Holiday Celebration that was so warm in heart with so many people participating. And so much more he could have positively editorialized on and represented our town to itself in a way besides grump-grump-grump!

Mr. Clark, do you always have to be a grinch? Even the Grinch's raisin heart grew sometime. How about yours?

Gray News Failed again

On December 8, Ray Clark published:

Council moves ahead with Dispatch referendum, slows Zoning ordinance
Ray Clark and Judy Huff
"Another meeting, another boatload of questions for the Gray Town Council.
Pam Wilkinson wanted to know what's happening with Pennell, and so did Jim Monroe. The answer? Nobody knows; it's still in the hands of a judge.
Nearly a thousand signatories to a petition wanted to know what's happening with Gray Dispatch; the answer to that is clear: it's in the hands of Cumberland County until next June, when a referendum will decide whether the transfer will happen.
Lots of people wondered what's going on with the Wellhead Protection District zoning ordinance amendment, including the Water District and David Knudsen, of the Ordinance Review Committee. The answer to this one is, for the present, not much: the Council, after discovering several errors in the document, decided to send it to the Planning Board, errors and all.
Next up for the Council: planning the budget process for next year."

There are several journalistic issues with this piece. First, it is only 148 words long. In news, brevity is prized, but not to the point where all meaning and facts are left out! More on that in a minute. Second, why does it take two people to write such a short article? It seems feeble that two people were necessary to create such a fact-less article. You want vigorous news, not lame news. Also problematic is that one of the two people was a dispatcher for 25 years. If covering a dispatch issue it would be better to choose someone who has no ties whatsoever to the issue. But Nathan is on the fire rescue department and Judy was, and so there the forever Gray News issue of being involved with the news while reporting on it pops up again.

Back to the brevity issue. There is a difference in reporting that something happened than reporting what happened. This short article only reports that a meeting occurred. Not much else. Here are specifics:

“Pam Wilkinson wanted to know what's happening with Pennell, and so did Jim Monroe. The answer? Nobody knows; it's still in the hands of a judge.”
It’s good that the authors included the names of the people asking. That way readers can assess credibility. However, never assume that readers know ‘about Pennell.’ In this case, just mentioning Pennell does a disservice to the reader, who is now alerted that there is an issue but not what it is. A couple of sentences offering background are necessary here, but not one, but two authors failed to do so.

Secondly, the following is nonsensical: “Nearly a thousand signatories to a petition wanted to know what's happening with Gray Dispatch; the answer to that is clear: it's in the hands of Cumberland County until next June, when a referendum will decide whether the transfer will happen.” What is new about this piece of news? What does it mean for the reader? There is no new information, nothing illuminating for the reader why this was raised at a council meeting. Unless... it was a way for the authors, one of whom was a dispatcher paid by the town for several decades, to get a dig in at their own agenda.

Third: “Lots of people wondered what's going on with the Wellhead Protection District zoning ordinance amendment, including the Water District and David Knudsen, of the Ordinance Review Committee. The answer to this one is, for the present, not much: the Council, after discovering several errors in the document, decided to send it to the Planning Board, errors and all.”

‘Lots of people’?? Who? How many? Failure to present facts is a failure on the part of the two authors. Next: “after discovering several errors in the document” is a bad sentence. Passive tense is always bad to use in a supposed factual news article. News is supposed to illuminate facts for the reader, not dim them. So, What errors? Who discovered them? Were they minor or major?? Can Planning Board fix them? Will Council get a chance to fix them?

This piece of non-news:

1. Does not present any facts
2. Fails to shed light on issues
3. Raises more questions than it answers
4. Does a good job of clouding issues
5. Uses an author with a direct interest in the news and who had participated in it. (former Dispatch employee and Petition disseminating) which is against the code of ethics.
4. uses two authors to complete a piece that turned out to be utter failure. Which is pretty pathetic, if you ask me. That last part was opinion. Just to be clear.