It’s been exactly one week since an earthquake struck in the Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince. I’m not going to waste words describing the magnitude of this tragedy. It’s just too devastatingly sad. Like most people, in addition to feeling torn apart by the news reports being dispatched from Port Au Prince, I also feel helpless.

I’m also pretty furious, but not surprised, at how quickly pundits and other creepy zealots have pounced on this disaster and attempted to spin it into a political or religious issue.

First, Pat Robertson, best known as the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the Host of the 700 club, suggested that Tuesday’s earthquake and the  generally desperate state of affairs on their side of the island of Hispaniola were a result of a pact the Haitian people made with Satan in order to free themselves from slavery imposed by their French masters and their leader “Napoleaon III, or whatever.”

Okay, so, let’s start by plucking the low hanging fruit.  Haiti earned their independence  through the course of many bloody battles fought between 1791 and 1803.  François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture led the struggle against the French, who at the time were under the rule of  Napoleon Bonaparte. “Napoleon III or whatever” did not come on the scene until the 1850s.

I won’t waste too much time on Robertson’s implication that what Haitians are suffering now is somehow their comeuppance for bad vodoo set in motion two centuries ago. Pat Robertson is … not smart.  He may have wielded some power and influence back when he was being plastered on the covers of magazines like Time for the revolutionary manner in which he was able to combine modern media and religion to separate the poor and naive from their hard earned money. Now, he’s just some guy.  He’s an affront to our collective intelligence that has evolved into a bumbling embarrassment.

But then there’s Rush Limbaugh, a man seemingly in control of his mental capacities and a voice that many, many people tune into every day for entertainment and guidance. *sigh* Some folks, like me, tune in to remind themselves that they are still capable of getting really, really mad at inanimate objects, like radios. I digress. Here’s a conversation between Rush and a caller transcribed  from his radio show that took place as rescue workers were still pulling dead bodies from the wreckage in Port Au Prince.

Justin of Raleigh, North Carolina: “Why does Obama say if you want to donate some money, you could go to whitehouse.gov to direct you how to do so? If I wanted to donate to the Red Cross, why do I have to go to the White House page to donate?”

Limbaugh: “Exactly. Would you trust the money’s gonna go to Haiti?”

Justin: “No.”

Rush: “But would you trust that your name’s gonna end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?”

Justin: “Absolutely!”

Limbaugh: “Absolutely!”

Transcripts from his show also have Rush trashing president Obama for his unnatural affinity for “the downtrodden.”

What Limbaugh is doing is depressing and obvious. Literally hundreds of thousands of people are either dead or homeless in Haiti because of this earthquake, and all Limbaugh sees is an opportunity. I know, as well as you do, that Rush Limbaugh is just an entertainer. His disdain for “the Left” has made him millions, probably closer to billions. He’s got every right to chase those dollars, too.

But, really? Limbaugh knows that the Obama administration would not skim donations meant for disaster victims or use the outpouring of support as a opportunity to add names to their mailing list is not only absurd. However, he also knows suggesting it is really, really good for business. Again, that’s what’s so pathetic. So many are dead and buried in mass graves. So many more will die and the complete collapse of Haiti’s infrastructure means that most will do so without the modest comfort provided by a hospital bed. Yet all this guy who has made billions by stirring rancor on the radio can think about is how he can use this as an opportunity to make the president look bad. Is there ever a time to completely stifle our discontent with government as concerned citizens? Of course not. But when it’s completely fabricated you may want to consider shutting your fat face the hell up.

Anyway, here’s my humble suggestion on how to discuss issues related to religion, race or politics in the wake of a disaster like this. Ignore them. At least for now. The wounds are too fresh and emotions too high. Find a charitable organization that you trust and give an amount you feel comfortable with. Anything beyond that won’t do any good for anybody.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of community newspapers since Bourne Fire Department Deputy Chief Paul Weeks was arraigned on three counts of rape.
I have become a acquainted with Deputy Chief Weeks in my nearly two years of covering the Bourne Fire Department. First as a Lieutenant, then as a Deputy Chief, he was frequently around the department’s Main Street headquarters, where most of my reporting on the department is done. He appeared to me as somebody who understood the role of the department in dealing with the media, as he has always been eager to provide me with whatever details he could related to incidents that were responded to on his shift. As with most of the folks I deal with on a regular basis in Bourne’s public safety offices, he is not somebody I would consider a friend, but a friendly resource. (Reporters aren’t allowed to have any friends.)
I’m writing this not in an attempt to insulate Deputy Chief Weeks from the very serious charges he now faces, but to give you an idea of some of the difficulties reporters face when having to write negative things about people with whom they have developed a working relationship.
Those relationships? At a community newspaper? They’re everything. Establishing trust with folks in your community is just about the most important thing you can do as a reporter. It’s how you will get the tips that will account for about 95 percent of the copy you file every week, and how you can be sure that people will at least consider picking up the phone when they see that it’s you calling, and they know you want to talk about something they did wrong. Being able to handle relationships with sources in a way that allows you to speak candidly while not alienating them in the process is a hard earned skill that I’m striving to attain. I think being able to maintain such a dynamic makes for good newsgathering.
Here’s the rub, though; you can only be perceived as betraying somebody’s trust once you’ve earned it. And though no good reporter (or decent human being) would ever aspire to undermine anybody they’ve establish a trusting relationship with, it’s very easy for people who live in the public eye to feel betrayed. Deputy Chief Weeks has helped me do my job better by providing me information I need to write about his department, so I can easily see how he would feel betrayed by opening his copy of the Enterprise, seeing the words “Charged,” “Rape,” “Arrested,” and “Weeks,” all in a story with my byline on it.
We all have jobs to do. I’d like to believe that If a reporter is doing their job, the right way, that they’re not betraying or taking advantage of anyone. People may be hurt by what a reporter writes, but only if they’re in a position where the public has a right to know about the stupid, embarrassing or dangerous things they do. What Deputy Chief Weeks has been accused of doing is a combination all of things, so its our job to report on it, not matter how uncomfortable it might make us, or our sources.

It’s 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. Not usually an ideal time to be blogging, but I’m waiting for one more phone-call to come in so I can finish my last story of the week and head home.

I figured I would use these spare moments to share some various and sundry thoughts on topics both local and global with you all.

There are a lot of thing about living in Sandwich that I know better than to complain about. There’s not a ton of night-life or industry, sure, but in a roundabout way that makes the town a far more relaxing and laid-back place to reside. However, if there’s one thing I that gets me all righteously indignant on a daily basis, it has to be the lack of sidewalks, especially on Old Main Street. I walk my 13-year-old Jack Russell Terrier down Old Main every day, and I usually have to drag the little guy into somebody’s front yard every 45 seconds when a car comes barreling down the road. It’s only inconvenient in the summer. However, its absolutely frustrating in the winter months when people’s front yards are outlined in snow drifts. What do we do about this? I don’t know. Sometimes it’s nice to complain about something without offering a reasonable solution, though. It’s downright Patriotic, in fact.

I listened to President Obama’s health-care address in my car on the radio last night after attending a school committee meeting. I thought the President gained momentum and confidence as the address progressed. It was a practical and well paced response to both the legitimate and ludicrous concerns about health care reform. I had my notebook on me while I listened, so I jotted down some questions his speech raised with me and I’m hoping to be far more engaged in this debate during the stretch run than I was during the last few months. Judging from what I saw of the town-hall meetings during the summer and general level of discourse surrounding this issue to this point, I don’t feel like I’ve missed a whole hell of a lot, yet.

Speaking of last night’s address, I wonder how Senator Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) is feeling this afternoon? While me and this guy probably have next to nothing in common, I sure know how it feels to be on the border of losing your temper in a public assembly, especially when you feel like the guy controlling the mic is full of crap. He should have read by last blog entry! Pack a PB&J next time, Joe.

Football starts tonight. I enter a fantasy football league every year and every year I promise myself that I’ll find a more productive way to waste 20 bucks. My participation is solely the result of peer pressure from a group of guys I post on a music forum with. I like football. I mean, I am a human being after all. But I don’t follow it with the same zealotry as professional basketball, which is two months away from filling a massive void in my life. Anyway, I was lucky enough to draft Adrian Peterson. So there’s that.

Basketball! I guess it has come time to bid see-ya to a fund and productive summer of pick-up hoops. As the summer fades so do the avaiable hours shooting around outdoors. Prior to this summer, I had not set a pick or swatted away a lay up in anger in probably eight years. I started shooting baskets at the Henry T. Wing School back in May. At first, I found myself playing games of one on five against hordes of eager fourth graders. I was out there almost every day in June, despite the rain, and even managed to recruit a small but dedicated group of adult ballers to start playing with me on the regular. My favorite memory from this summer comes from our rainy June, when, during a soaking wet afternoon, basketball-buddy Brian and I spent probably four hours playing two on two against two brothers who were visiting from Kentucky. We won a few games, lost a few more and slid around the rain slicked court like it was a hockey rink. I felt like a 12-year-old; It was freaking brilliant. Also, I’ll just point out that being 12 rules way harder at age 25 than it did at age 12. That day is also when I received the best nickname that’s ever been bestowed on me in my entire life; White Howard. It still makes me laugh.

By July our numbers had grown to a point where we could run full court game. By August we were meeting regularly and I was, to my own surprise, scoring a basket or two and pulling down a reasonable amount of rebounds in every game. I was no longer embarrassing myself, at least. I spent essentially my entire Labor Day playing basketball. Appropriately, it was with the same small and devoted group of ballers who I had formed a bond with at the start of the summer. It was fantastic. If Labor Day is supposed to be a celebration of the end of the summer, I couldn’t think of a better way to do it than to spend the day getting the living crap beat out of me by a few close friends on a beat up old basketball court.

Once, while a freshman at Taunton High School, I earned an afternoon in detention for drawing a pair of eyeballs on small, round pieces of paper and placing them under the lenses of my glasses. The mock-eyeballs were created in order to give my teacher the illusion that I was awake, while I slumbered at my desk. Actually, the real reason I went through with the stupid gag was to make my classmates laugh.

From what I remember, nobody really got the joke; the eyeballs weren’t very convincing. However, my teacher, Mr. Caia, sensed that whatever I was doing in the back of the classroom with poorly drawn eyeballs underneath my glasses was certainly askance of whatever students are supposed to be doing (probably paying attention) and swiftly dropped the punishment hammer on my head.

I’m sometimes reminded of this story when I attend a public meeting, whether they are selectmen, school committee, planning board or shore and harbor. I’d like to think I have at the very least an average attention span. In fact, compared to the current generation of whipper-snappers being raised on social-media, texting and any other buzz-thing that makes me feel decrepit, I’m sure my ability to remain attentive would seem to span the horizon. Yet, there are times during these meetings when I honestly struggle remain engaged.

These times usually occur during any portion of a meeting agenda referred to as “Report of the …” or “Update From …” For those who regularly attend public meetings, what these words indicate is someone is going to talk: a lot.  The inflection of his voice will likely remain unchanged while he talks, and he may or may not repeat himself multiple times. After this person finishes talking, the committee will ask him questions, which will likely initiate a response from the original talker that could potentially last longer than his original talking session. This call and response session, in real time, lasts about an hour to an hour-and-a-half. To the audience, though, it can feel twice as long.

Yet, now that I’m an adult, with a reputation (gulp) to maintain, I can no-longer engage in the kind of tom-foolery when bored or frustrated in a public setting as I did when I was a 14-year-old. Additionally, though all this talk may be mind numbing, couched deep within it are potential news items. Essentially, for the sake of doing my job well, I need to pay attention, and, for the sake of appearing like a responsible adult and not a petulant child, I also need to look like I’m paying attention.

I’ve picked up a few habits over the last year and a half in order to help me do that. For starters, I never go to a meeting on an empty stomach. For me, doing anything while low on fuel is a risky proposition, but for meetings, it’s especially unadvisable. Usually, when I’m hungry, I swiftly cycle through three emotionally states: cranky, inconsolable and confused. If I don’t find a way to consume a couple peanut-butter sandwiches before the third cycle ends, I either fall asleep or wander peacefully into traffic. Needless to say, I make sure that I’m well fed before I brave a meeting.

Secondly, I try to find somebody I know and can sit next to during these meetings. Having a companion to sit through a meeting with makes you feel a little less isolated in your torment. Also, a lot of the times during public meetings, I’m compelled by an innate urge to blurt out “OH, COME ON, SERIOUSLY!?” at least a dozen times. Usually this happens when a speaker will say something along the lines of “like I already said,” and follow that by expressing a sentiment that was, actually, just like something they already said. Sitting next to another person helps kill the urge to submit to instinct during such times of righteous frustration, if for no other reason than to avoid embarrassment.

Finally, even though public meetings are tedious, the topics discussed during them are often important. The reason people buy local papers is because they care about what’s happening in their schools, on their beaches, in their sewers and on their roads. They don’t have time to go to the meetings where these things are discussed in excruciating detail; so they trust people like me to go, and to pay close attention. In fact, it is in particular our diligence in these municipal matters, which a lot of larger newspapers have moved on from for reasons with which I could fill out another blog, that has allowed us to carve out a niche and stay vital.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that, considering the hard work that a lot of reporters who have come before me have done to carve out this niche, it would be exceedingly bad form for me to fall asleep inside it.

Before I ever receive a copy of my police logs, they’re “scrubbed” by Bourne Police’s Police Lieutenant. The rhyme or reason behind what get’s blacked out and what doesn’t is a little bit of a mystery to me. It’s one I’ve never really pursued too deeply, though.  If there’s ever anything written under the black mark that looks like it could be important, I just ask for it.  Almost always, the lieutenant provides the information I need; if he doesn’t, he’s usually got a pretty good excuse.

Sometimes, though, the blackouts make a log entry seem about x1000 more compelling than it probably really is. Take, for example, this entry. What looks to be a not-so-neighborly dispute over errant garbage could become much more entertaining through the power of the ad-libing.

Okay, looks like we need a place, a proper noun, a personal pronoun, a proper noun, a plural noun, a proper noun, an adjective and another proper noun.

Do your best commenters, reader participation is highly encouraged!

Planning weddings is such a drag. Not that I would know from personal experience, but I’ve heard the sentiment related by more than a few who do. One of the biggest hassles is sorting out the invitations; deciding who gets to come and who does not. Weddings are events, I imagine, that everybody wants to be a part of. Not only to witness the nuptials, but also to indulge in the free booze, food and live entertainment. There’s also the opportunity to mingle with other single young people and, of course, drink booze.

I’ve been snubbed on a wedding invite, and it stung for a bit, until I remembered what weddings are like. People actually refer to farmer’s almanacs to make sure they land these things on the nicest weekends of the year.

How selfish!

I also recognize that weddings are expensive, and with each invite comes added cost. Especially in economic times like this, it makes sense to trim your wedding guest list to a select group of folks who might, I don’t know, appreciate the ceremony more than the open bar.

For some, though, the shame of being dissed during wedding season is too much to bear. Take for example a family from Bourne, who despite not being invited to a family wedding, was still gracious enough to send a present.

A man’s reputation is as valuable to him as it is fragile, just ask David C. Wiesner.

Mr. Wiesner, who lives on County Road in Bourne, has the misfortune of having a name very similar to David L. Wisner, a frequent flyer in the Bourne Police Logs.

Mr. Wisner was arrested earlier this month after he allegedly discharged an AK-47 during an argument with his neighbor over the whereabouts of his vehicle. Police said he then ran off to his mom’s house and hid in fear that he had actually killed the guy.

Mr. Wiesner is retired, and according to him, has a clean criminal record. He spent a career working in law enforcement, he said. His father was a game warden and “very involved in conservation issues.” There’s only one Wiesner family with roots in Bourne, he said, and since 2000 David L. Wisner’s actions have been throwing mud all over that name. Nearly a decade ago, Mr. Wiesner said, he received notification that “he” owed more than $26,000 in unpaid child support. The mail, meant for Mr. Wisner, was accidentally sent to him instead. “It took about three months and a hundred dollars to get the documents I needed to prove I wasn’t him,” Mr. Wiesner said.

Mr. Wiesner’s friends won’t talk to him anymore, old fishing buddies won’t return his calls and his step-son was briefly under the impression that he shot an AK-47 at somebody in a dispute over a freaking car. They think he’s a criminal. It says so in the paper.

So, what does that have to do with me? The report handed to me by the Police Department two weeks ago misspelled Mr. Wisner’s name as Wisener. Now, that’s nobody’s name, but it’s close enough to Wiesner for discomfort. I make mistakes sometimes, it’s a painful part of the job that I try not to lose sleep over. However, when things go haywire over something we’ve written in the paper, and it’s not our fault, I find myself getting even more frustrated.

It shows that, even when we as reporters are on the top of our game, the things we print will cause collateral damage. That’s the power of misinformation.

Wednesday, June 17, marked the 30 year anniversary of the crash of Air New England Flight 248, an event that I had never heard about until I was assigned to write a story about it this week.  In my defense, it both occurred and seemed to have vanished from most people’s collective memories about five years before I was born.

Of course, for some, the memories of the Twin Otter’s crash into the woods at Camp Greenough in Yarmouth would never really go away. Those are the nine people who survived the crash and the employees or Air New England who were close to Captain George Parmenter, the one person aboard flight 248 who did not survive.

The memories of the former group are captured in Robert Sabbag’s “Down Around Midnight: A Recollection of Crash and Survival” a 214 page non-fiction novel released this month through Penguin Publishing.  As for the recollections of the latter group, the employees of Air New England; they’re conspicuously absent.  That’s what provided us with our angle for our story about the crash’s anniversary.

As he blogged about earlier this week, Enterprise sports editor Dan Crowley was one of those employees of Air New England who thought that Mr. Sabbag’s book come up just short in its attempt to truly capture story of Flight 248.

I spent an hour talking to Mr. Crowley about what he remembered from the night Flight 248 went down. It was pretty much like any other interview I’ve ever conducted, even though Mr. Crowley is a fellow Enterprise staffer.

I wrote the story up Thursday morning, careful to make sure I interpreted Dan correctly. Of course, that’s what every reporter tries to do when they write.  However, I felt like getting anything wrong here would have been acutely embarrassing. I mean, how can you screw up a story when your source is working only a few steps away from you and is perfectly willing to help you get it right?

Anyways, the writing process was, admittedly, stressful, and so was having Mr. Crowley scan through the piece. Not that he’s a hard case … not in the least bit.  Let’s put it this way; aviation issues are not exactly my strong suit, and I knew that was going to be exposed more than just a little bit by what I had written.

I think the experience I had writing the 248 piece kind of encapsulates what it’s like being a reporter for a weekly newspaper. Of the fields I cover, I have expertise in exactly zero of them.  There are also myriad off-beat assignments we’ll come across during a year of which we are absolutely ignorant. It’s humbling.

Donald M. Murray’s “Writing to Dealine” expresses a sentiment about what it’s like to be a reporter and to always feel like a novice in one area or another that I find encouraging. I’m paraphrasing, but Mr. Murray essentially refers to a reporter as a professional ignoramus. Essentially, it’s not our job to know everything; it’s our job to be humble enough to be willing to let people smarter than ourselves teach us things. Once we start making assumptions about what we do know or what pieces of information we feel we can take for granted — that’s when things can go terribly wrong.

I think the story I worked on with Dan came out pretty well. It was a humbling experience, but once the piece was filed, I felt pretty confident that I hadn’t screwed things up too terribly. For a reporter, that’s just about the best you can hope for at the end of the day.

What do reporters eat? What powers our brains and bodies as we strive to produce high quality news on a strict deadline? Many films about reporters depict them typing away in smoke filled newsrooms occasionally taking a discrete pull from a bottle of scotch concealed beneath a pile of old newspapers on their desk. Maybe every once in a while they’ll take lunch with a high influential source at a fine dining establishment in the heart of a bustling metropolis. Maybe, I’m thinking of lawyers.

Anyway, here’s what’s truly the latest in haute cuisine in the Enterprise newsroom.

That’s a nearly empty FOUR POUND jug of animal crackers. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of the communal cracker trough when it was filled less than a week ago.

This is second jug of crackers the newsroom staff has devoured in as many weeks. In addition to providing sustenance, I like to believe these crackers have also served as  a sort staff-wide inoculation. Whatever germs are dwelling in the cracker tub, which is frequently dipped into by ink stained and sweaty hands throughout the day, odds are everyone who works at the Enterprise is immune to them by now.

Save for, perhaps, myself, as I haven’t been so bold as to dip into the jar yet.

*cough*

The Bourne and Sandwich High School classes of 2009 graduated last weekend. Yours truly was not only responsible for covering both commencements, but also providing most of the written content for the supplements that the Enterprise produced to commemorate the events. They both look excellent, by the way. I got a chance to peep copies on Wednesday and the colors on the photo pages just popped off the page, especially in Sandwich.

Graduation is a challenging time of year for reporters. It’s not the assignments themselves that stress the reporting muscles, though. In fact, as most high school administrations provide electronic copies of all the speakers’ addresses, there’s really no need to frantically scribble notes like you would at, say, a planning board meeting. The challenge is to resist the temptation to sleepwalk through the writing process. It would be easy to do, in order to preserve your mental energy for more challenging pieces, but that wouldn’t be a service to the folks in the community for whom receiving a diploma is, in fact, a big deal.

What I try to accomplish with any graduation story is to show the readers that, at the very least, I was paying attention to what the speakers were talking about during their addresses. If there’s a common theme that arises throughout the speeches, I’ll try to weave them together and, hopefully, present the event as a cohesive narrative.

The graduation story presents an important lesson to weary reporters who probably write between 500 and 600 stories a year. It’s that no matter how inconsequential a piece may seem to you, there’s at least one reader in your community for whom it’s the most important thing they will read all year. I don’t know if it’s possible to write a truly transcendent story about a high school graduation, but I think that it’s important to write ones that are at least attentive enough to show the audience that you realize that reporting, especially for a weekly newspaper, is about serving the community, not yourself.