The story in Saturday’s Burlington Free Press on the aftermath of Josh Pfenning’s apparent suicide in the Occupy encampment in City Hall Park was reasonably well done.
Except one thing:
Today, a joint decision by the mayor, public safety and human rights officials that all tents must be removed from the encampment offers new challenges.
[emphasis added]
If you read through the whole 47 paragraphs, no “human rights officials” are identified or quoted.
How would anyone know from this story who those unnamed “human rights officials” would be? The ACLU? The state-level Human Rights Commission? How would any reader know what role these unnamed human rights officials played in the decision to shut down the camp?
Meanwhile, the inclusion of the phrase gives a certain moral legitimacy and cover to the actions of police and city government officials in evicting the protestors.
In a callback to the voicemail I left him, Robert Appel, Executive Director of the Human Rights Commission, said he’d been consulted. He said he was called originally by someone from the Occupiers, who reached him via Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling. “I spoke to the Mayor,” Appel said, “and I reviewed the statement, but I did not endorse it. … I suggested that they tell everyone concerned ahead of time what they were going to do” about access to the park. “Mike wanted my name in there, and yes, I reviewed it, but I did not endorse it.”
In an email, Appel wrote to Police Chief Schirling:
By adding the threat of felony prosecution for what actions are yet to be fully defined, I cannot endorse the statement. However you may add my name and title with the statement
“reviewed and approved as to form as enforcement agencies are giving clear notice of their announced changes to enforcing applicable city ordinances “
Oh, and btw, “No one from the Free Press called me,” Appel said in his phone conversation with me.
Let me be clear: I am not expressing the opinion that the police have acted wrongly – in fact, other than getting pushy with Occupiers “near” the police crime scene tape, [and getting censorious with the press covering the scene]* the BPD has been circumspect. I am asking whether and, if so, why the journos have allowed their story to enhance the public perception of the police and city government’s moral legitimacy in their actions without specific information.
I emailed both reporters Saturday morning, asking similar questions.
John Briggs sent this response a few hours later:
Thanks for your note. I didn’t report that portion of the story, but my understanding is that the head of the state’s Human Rights Commission did agree with the police decision. You’re quite right that should have been clear in the story.
After my prompting to “do something” about that unexplained reference, John Briggs emailed that he has “notified an editor to get a clarification in the paper Sunday naming the official.”
* [added 4 hours after the original post]
Update: Briggs authored a clarification in today’s edition of the BFP, on the jump page (p. 7A). He quoted the statement and spelled out Vermont HRC Director Robert Appel’s involvement.
In a Time of Universal Deceit, TELLING the TRUTH Is a Revolutionary Act. ~ George Orwell
Once again, the Freeps story was extensive but neglected what appear to be key details. This is a delicate PR situation and it behooves the Free Press to get the story exactly right to avoid complicating matters with further misunderstandings.
locally and nationally the Burlington Free Press (local print media) could shine or tarnish themselves here.
I think I haven’t quite made clear that there was no “joint decision” with the HRC’s Exec. Director Robert Appel. He played no part in the decision, only reviewed the statement that was being made to the protesters. I think Mr. Appel would say that was a misrepresentation of the process and his involvement.
NanuqFC
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The BFP is essentially a copy-paste organization that adds some prose in between. They do some good business coverage and human interest stories but there is no good fact-checking or investigative arm.
Somebody should give Anne Galloway a few million dollars and start a small daily in the office space in Winooski and call it The Onion.