We find no enjoyment in this coverage
By
Rory Ryan-hcpress@cinci.rr.com
Sometimes this job is a lot of fun.
I'm thinking of the September 1990 press box celebration at Riverfront Stadium when our Cincinnati Reds clinched the division title during a rain delay in their wire-to-wire championship season.
I'm thinking of Rick Earley's district runners-up, fun-loving baseball team that lost to a tough Cincinnati Reading team a few years later. I'm thinking of Rick's first win as American Legion Post 129 head coach way down in Ashland, Ky.'s Central Park.
I'm thinking of Jim Horne's perfect 10-0 football season that featured a tough-as-nails defense with Sean and J.D. and rock-solid running backs like Rodney Captain and Chad Price.
I'm thinking of a George Jones concert in suburban Jasper in Pike County.
A 29-inch Scioto County snowstorm on Martin Luther King Day in 1994 when I drove 53 miles to get to work on time, when some coworkers who lived in the city of Portsmouth failed to show up.
An evening listening to Nathan Whitt entertain at the Adams County Chamber of Commerce dinner 11 or 12 years ago.
A Lynchburg-Clay Final Four in 1993. A North Adams Final Four a few years after that…So many wonderful memories over more than two decades in the business that I still enjoy more often than not.
For the record, I found no particular enjoyment from this business today.
Reporting on public officials – or candidates for elected office – always brings to mind the age-old questions and allegations of motivation and conspiracy.
• What's the motivation behind the story?
• And, is there a conspiracy against someone in the story?
In the case of The Highland County Press story published on our website today, the answers are fairly straightforward.
To address one of the many unidentified bloggers on our website, who wrote, "My question for the Press is why publish this now? It is May and this occurred in April.. Slow news day? Why is this newsworthy?"
My response? We published this today because we were not aware of it in April. Had the sheriff's office informed us of it in April, we would have published it then.
We received the HCSO report today upon request, after learning of it from local law enforcement.
We based the decision to publish on a number of facts:
1. The HCSO said if "further problems arise, the sheriff's office WOULD (emphasis added) pursue criminal charges." Not may, not might, not could, but would pursue criminal charges.
Thus, the case was of a serious nature, according to our interpretation of the sheriff's report.
2. According to the HCSO report, "Drew (Hastings) did admit to sending the Facebook pages … and further stated, that looking back, it was not a good decision made on his behalf."
3. Mr. Hastings is running for mayor of Hillsboro and he states, according to the HCSO report, that he has a drug problem.
Given these facts and other information, it would seem a poor service for the newspaper to ignore this story.
Our thought-process behind the coverage has been this: Be accurate, be fair, be informative to the general public and be beholden to no one. Simply put, we have no entangling alliances with any public official, candidate for public office, or political party. Period. We intend to keep it that way, too.
Basically, that’s how any good newspaper operates. It’s a good policy. Even beyond the confines of the cynical newsrooms.
Shortly after our story was published, Highland County Sheriff Ron Ward called to vent a little bit. He told me he thought he looked bad in the story due to some unconfirmed quotes about him that were attributed, second-hand, to Mr. Hastings.
The sheriff has a valid point, to a degree. However, he did confirm that Mr. Hastings did, in fact, attend a Super Bowl party in his (Ward's) home, as was alleged. And, frankly, there's nothing wrong with that.
However, the sheriff also served on the Highland County Republican Party Central Committee and he had access to this information prior to the May primary. Had the information been disseminated in mid-April, we likely would not be discussing it in late-May.
When I asked Sheriff Ward today if he still supports Mr. Hastings' candidacy for mayor, he hedged a bit, saying he'd like to sit down and hear his side of this. That's fair enough. But if I were on that GOP Central Committee, I would have appreciated knowing this prior to the primary election. Maybe that's just me.
It's worth noting, in my humble opinion, that I like and respect Sheriff Ward and have endorsed him in previous campaigns.
In March 2005, I offered the following published opinion: Highland County residents ought to know this. Your county sheriff works very diligently to do the right things and to protect and serve the people. We are fortunate to have many dedicated, hard-working public officials in this county, but for my money, they don’t come much better than Sheriff Ron Ward."
I maintain that respect for the sheriff. Do we always agree? Of course not. Should we? No.
But a free press has a fundamental duty and responsibility dating to our Founding Fathers to be the watchdog of local, state and federal government.
We take this responsibility seriously. We have no other motivation, nor are there any conspiracies – either real or imagined.
Let me share the opinions of Les Zaitz and Brent Walth, who wrote in a Nieman Report at www.nieman.harvard.edu:
"(Watchdog) journalism remains a fundamental duty of a free press. In today’s unsettled news environment, watchdog reporting also is necessary for our survival. It sets professional journalists apart from bloggers and cell phone videographers, providing added value that readers and viewers simply can’t get anywhere else."
I think reasonable minds would agree.
As a county commissioner recently told me on another matter of inconvenience, "It's all about respect for the office."
Yes, it is.
Having worked professionally with the current mayor of Hillsboro as well as his two predecessors, I simply cannot imagine any of them conducting themselves in such a manner.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]
I'm thinking of the September 1990 press box celebration at Riverfront Stadium when our Cincinnati Reds clinched the division title during a rain delay in their wire-to-wire championship season.
I'm thinking of Rick Earley's district runners-up, fun-loving baseball team that lost to a tough Cincinnati Reading team a few years later. I'm thinking of Rick's first win as American Legion Post 129 head coach way down in Ashland, Ky.'s Central Park.
I'm thinking of Jim Horne's perfect 10-0 football season that featured a tough-as-nails defense with Sean and J.D. and rock-solid running backs like Rodney Captain and Chad Price.
I'm thinking of a George Jones concert in suburban Jasper in Pike County.
A 29-inch Scioto County snowstorm on Martin Luther King Day in 1994 when I drove 53 miles to get to work on time, when some coworkers who lived in the city of Portsmouth failed to show up.
An evening listening to Nathan Whitt entertain at the Adams County Chamber of Commerce dinner 11 or 12 years ago.
A Lynchburg-Clay Final Four in 1993. A North Adams Final Four a few years after that…So many wonderful memories over more than two decades in the business that I still enjoy more often than not.
For the record, I found no particular enjoyment from this business today.
Reporting on public officials – or candidates for elected office – always brings to mind the age-old questions and allegations of motivation and conspiracy.
• What's the motivation behind the story?
• And, is there a conspiracy against someone in the story?
In the case of The Highland County Press story published on our website today, the answers are fairly straightforward.
To address one of the many unidentified bloggers on our website, who wrote, "My question for the Press is why publish this now? It is May and this occurred in April.. Slow news day? Why is this newsworthy?"
My response? We published this today because we were not aware of it in April. Had the sheriff's office informed us of it in April, we would have published it then.
We received the HCSO report today upon request, after learning of it from local law enforcement.
We based the decision to publish on a number of facts:
1. The HCSO said if "further problems arise, the sheriff's office WOULD (emphasis added) pursue criminal charges." Not may, not might, not could, but would pursue criminal charges.
Thus, the case was of a serious nature, according to our interpretation of the sheriff's report.
2. According to the HCSO report, "Drew (Hastings) did admit to sending the Facebook pages … and further stated, that looking back, it was not a good decision made on his behalf."
3. Mr. Hastings is running for mayor of Hillsboro and he states, according to the HCSO report, that he has a drug problem.
Given these facts and other information, it would seem a poor service for the newspaper to ignore this story.
Our thought-process behind the coverage has been this: Be accurate, be fair, be informative to the general public and be beholden to no one. Simply put, we have no entangling alliances with any public official, candidate for public office, or political party. Period. We intend to keep it that way, too.
Basically, that’s how any good newspaper operates. It’s a good policy. Even beyond the confines of the cynical newsrooms.
Shortly after our story was published, Highland County Sheriff Ron Ward called to vent a little bit. He told me he thought he looked bad in the story due to some unconfirmed quotes about him that were attributed, second-hand, to Mr. Hastings.
The sheriff has a valid point, to a degree. However, he did confirm that Mr. Hastings did, in fact, attend a Super Bowl party in his (Ward's) home, as was alleged. And, frankly, there's nothing wrong with that.
However, the sheriff also served on the Highland County Republican Party Central Committee and he had access to this information prior to the May primary. Had the information been disseminated in mid-April, we likely would not be discussing it in late-May.
When I asked Sheriff Ward today if he still supports Mr. Hastings' candidacy for mayor, he hedged a bit, saying he'd like to sit down and hear his side of this. That's fair enough. But if I were on that GOP Central Committee, I would have appreciated knowing this prior to the primary election. Maybe that's just me.
It's worth noting, in my humble opinion, that I like and respect Sheriff Ward and have endorsed him in previous campaigns.
In March 2005, I offered the following published opinion: Highland County residents ought to know this. Your county sheriff works very diligently to do the right things and to protect and serve the people. We are fortunate to have many dedicated, hard-working public officials in this county, but for my money, they don’t come much better than Sheriff Ron Ward."
I maintain that respect for the sheriff. Do we always agree? Of course not. Should we? No.
But a free press has a fundamental duty and responsibility dating to our Founding Fathers to be the watchdog of local, state and federal government.
We take this responsibility seriously. We have no other motivation, nor are there any conspiracies – either real or imagined.
Let me share the opinions of Les Zaitz and Brent Walth, who wrote in a Nieman Report at www.nieman.harvard.edu:
"(Watchdog) journalism remains a fundamental duty of a free press. In today’s unsettled news environment, watchdog reporting also is necessary for our survival. It sets professional journalists apart from bloggers and cell phone videographers, providing added value that readers and viewers simply can’t get anywhere else."
I think reasonable minds would agree.
As a county commissioner recently told me on another matter of inconvenience, "It's all about respect for the office."
Yes, it is.
Having worked professionally with the current mayor of Hillsboro as well as his two predecessors, I simply cannot imagine any of them conducting themselves in such a manner.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]