What Is Journalism? "Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. It is also the product of these activities. Journalism can be distinguished from other activities and products by certain identifiable characteristics and practices. These elements not only separate journalism from other forms of communication, they are what make it indispensable to democratic societies. History reveals that the more democratic a society, the more news and information it tends to have."
I'm not a journalist, I am a blogger that would give English teachers fits, a "Social Media Princess" as one person called me. The public should expect higher standards and accurate reporting from what are considered the true journalism outlets such as your local newspapers. There are two instances where I find our local journalists and journalism lacking.
The first instance goes back to 2016. There had been serious and wild accusations made by a Bridgeport resident, now a school board member himself, against Mrs. Marti Sageman and other members of the Bridgeport School Board. I covered these on my blog and all the local media outlets covered them extensively; in print, on TV, they would all show up at the meetings with their cameras and crews, the accuser was given plenty of TV airtime etc... Residents were just about demanding board members heads on a platter. Everyone believed the accusations. Sadly there are residents in Bridgeport Township that still believe those accusations to this day. Why? Because when the case was dismissed by the courts for having no merit, none of the local media was there to cover the story. The accuser had no proof, no documents, no witnesses. After all the sensational coverage the local media had given the accusations, you would think they would have wanted to give the cases dismissals at least a mention so as to inform the public of the final outcome. No more sensational accusations & headlines, no media interest it seemed to cover it. This was all dismissed by the court in May of 2016. When I finally found out about the dismissal I wrote a blog post sharing some of the court documents for the dismissal in August of 2016. You can read that blog post here and see the documents I shared from the courts:
http://bridgeportmusings.blogspot.com/2016/08/dismissal-of-john-rhines-lawsuit.html
So it is now three years after the accusations and lawsuits were thrown out by the courts and still no coverage by the local media. I have only found one recent mention in an article by Bob Johnson of MLive of part of the original lawsuits and him saying that it was dismissed due to board action of voting to approve a separation agreement. To me that does not seem like a very accurate or complete description of all that was involved in the whole mess that went on for over a year. If that is all that you ever read about the accusations and lawsuits dismissal, you might still believe that the wild accusations were true. Read the court documents to see the truth about it. Here is the article by Bob Johnson about the lawyer Philip Ellison where he mentions in passing the case about Bridgeport:
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/saginaw-county-lawyer-behind-tire-chalking-lawsuit-says-he-fights-for-the-little-guy.html
The media started a story and never finished it.
The second instance where I find our local journalists and journalism lacking involves a story that goes all the way back from 2009 through 2013 and involves the Bridgeport Township Trustee Board and other government officials. It all revolves around actions taken by the township government and the restoration of the historic State Street Bridge here in downtown Bridgeport. Most residents remember all about that. The local media again covered most aspects of the original story in detail. Members of the Trustee Board and some officials were recalled by the voters. One of those recalled was Lee Carpenter. Lee Carpenter was hired back to the Trustee Board as the clerk again, but not by the voters, but by the government officials, some of whom may be family and friends of his. Lee Carpenter was hired back on April 2nd of this year and still no local media has covered that fact. I would think that most Bridgeport residents would like to be informed of that fact since they did vote to recall him at one time. If I was a journalist or a publisher of one of our local media outlets I would think that might be a story that the Bridgeport residents, their news subscribers, might be interested in. When the local government does not inform the residents of this decision then the media is the main other option for the residents to find it out. The only other way they could find it out is the same way I did by reading the minutes of the April 2nd trustee meeting. The Bridgeport Township government has yet to make an official announcement of the hiring of Lee Carpenter. As of May 7th, the page on the township government website under the Administration section for the Township Clerk still had the retired clerk listed. As of May 8th, the page for the Township Clerk was removed and still is not back up on their website as of this writing. All the other pages for positions like Township Supervisor, Township Treasurer etc... are still there, just not one for the Clerk. Does Bridgeport Township not want the voters/residents to know that the formerly recalled Lee Carpenter is back as the township clerk? One can only speculate as to why they do not have a page for him.
I wrote a post about the township hiring Lee Carpenter back in April that also provides links to some of the original news stories about the troubles back when they were recalled and you can read it here:
http://bridgeportmusings.blogspot.com/2019/04/something-old-something-new-some-things.html
*EDIT* June 5, 2019 - I found out during the June 4th township trustee meeting that they first voted to appoint Lee Carpenter to the Zoning Board of Appeals during the December 18, 2018 township trustee board meeting. Were they bound and determined to bring him back to whatever position they could find for him in the township government? You can read my blog post about it: https://bridgeportmusings.blogspot.com/2019/06/bridgeport-township-board-meeting-june.html
I am truly surprised that the local media has not covered the story of Lee Carpenter being hired back to the position he was recalled from by the voters. I would think that especially a smaller outlet like the Birch Run/Bridgeport Herald that basically covers nothing but Birch Run and Bridgeport stories would find the time and space to report on that to their customers.
So when news organizations start sensational stories but then just drop them when they are no longer sensational, or fail to report on stories that would be of interest to the voters but perhaps not so good for the local government, is that just lazy journalism? Dishonest journalism? Lack of journalism? Maybe this is the reason that so many news organizations are no longer respected and are losing business?
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