Common Sense
Where Main Meets Wooster Bowling
Green, Ohio Vol. 1, No. 1 June, 2005
Why does the Sentinel-Tribune cover up the GOP
scandal?
One reason that Democrats are a poor
second to the Republicans in Wood County
is the biased news coverage policies of the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, which
clearly favor the Republicans. It is Wood County's equivalent to the Fox News
Channel.
This bias has never been more apparent than through the Sentinel-Tribune's coverage -- or lack
of coverage -- of the Tom Noe Coin Scandal that reportedly will result in the
loss of $10 to $12 million of the Ohio taxpayers' money.
By my unofficial count since the Toledo Blade first reported this scandal on
April 3, 2005, the Sentinel-Tribune
has put this story on page one only once. And that was to report a defense of
the investment of state tax money in rare coins. (Ohio is the only state in the
union to make this high risk investment of government funds.) The Sentinel-Tribune's other coverage of
this scandal has been from the Associated Press and has been "buried"
on inside pages where readers are less likely to notice. The Sentinel-Tribune apparently has yet to
assign a reporter to this scandal.
Even a beginning journalism
student
knows that this scandal should be big news in Bowling Green and Wood County. It
involves a PROMINENT citizen with LOCAL ties. Its MAGNITUDE is the entire state
of Ohio and its IMPACT is on every citizen who ultimately will have to pay more
taxes to make up the loss. And it just doesn't affect Tom Noe, who grew up in
Bowling Green, attended BGSU, has served on the BGSU trustees.
It affects Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery of Perrysburg, who sat on her hands for seven
weeks before deciding to sort of investigate. This would be the same Betty
Montgomery, who as attorney general, failed in her responsibility as an ex
officio member of the State Teachers Retirement System a few years ago while
the STRS lost $1 billion on faulty investments (Enron, etc.).
It affects State Sen. Randy Gardner and State Rep. Bob Latta, who as legislators should be watchdogs of the state treasury.
Yet this
scandal that puts the Republican grip on state government at risk remains virtually
uncovered by the Sentinel-Tribune. In
other words, the newspaper is covering up for the Republicans.
Why?
One reason may be that David C. Miller, editor of
the Sentinel-Tribune, has been a
Republican appointee to the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission for more
than a decade, according to news reports of December 2004. Miller was reported
making nearly $50,000 a year as in a job given to him by Republican Gov. Bob
Taft. In other words, the supposedly non-partisan editor of the Sentinel-Tribune owes the governor for
his high-paying second job. No wonder Miller appears covers up for the
Republicans with news coverage, or lack thereof.
It makes one wonder why Democrats, Independents and
open-minded Republicans should support the Sentinel-Tribune
and its advertisers. The Sentinel-Tribune
is making Wood County more and more a one-party county every day.
Do something
about it.
Contact Thomas M. Haswell, R. Richard Morris, and Kathryn A. Haswell, the
officers of the Sentinel-Tribune, at
Box 88, Bowling Green, OH 43402 and 419-352-4611, and tell them that their
readers and patrons deserve fair and objective coverage of the news.
Please let me know what you think.
Best regards, John K. Hartman, publisher, 4 Corners BG, John.Hartman@dacor.net
What is this
new publication you are reading?
4 Corners BG was founded June 1, 2005 by
John K. Hartman, its publisher. Its purpose is to provide additional news and
points-of-view to citizens of Bowling Green in the belief that thorough
awareness of and discussion of issues makes for a better community. It will be
available free at various drop-off points in Bowling Green. Patrons may support
4 Corners BG for $10 per issue. Ads may be purchased for $20 per issue.
Comments and submissions are welcome.
Contact information: John.Hartman@dacor.net
; 419-352-8180; 1400 Wren Road, BG, OH 43402
Page 2 4 Corners BG June,
2005
Driving 89X: I’ve got a closed mind on open
forums
Open forum.
Town meeting.
Public hearing.
These are the techniques that the
ruling class uses to find out what we, the people, are thinking.
What gets me stirred up is that more
often than not they wind up being gimmicks that enable the powers that be to
become even more powerful, sometimes at we the people’s expense.
On April 11 I did what a good
citizen should do. I attended open sessions held by two prominent northwest
Ohio politicians.
In the afternoon at the lovely
historic Grand Rapids Town Hall, I attended U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor’s Town
Meeting. It was one of four sessions held in towns in Gillmor’s 16-county
district of 600,000-plus people.
About fifty people attended of which
about 25 were not staffers, public officials or reporters.
Gillmor
was 19 minutes late to the session scheduled to begin at 3:30 and last one
hour. He talked for 13 minutes before taking questions. 36 minutes later he
exited, having to catch a plane. The public got 60 percent of the time it was
promised to question him.
Most of the questions were softballs
(easy) and Gillmor breezed through them. Nobody asked whether or not he
supported beleaguered House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. I was going to, but
deferred to citizens with personal concerns about retirement benefits and
medical insurance.
Gillmor waxed unchallenged about the wisdom of
offering private accounts to younger Social Security participants. He described
how the stock market pays better than savings certificates over time, omitting
the stock market crash of 1929 and big drops in 1987 and 2000.
If Gillmor had stayed the full hour, I think I could
have gotten in my question.
His aids furiously took notes.
Re-election requires staying on top of the issues and finding clever ways to
finesse them.
Asked
about blocking factory farms in Wood County, Gillmor offered no help,
saying it was a state issue. A plausible way to avoid a controversial question,
no doubt anticipated.
That evening I journeyed to the
fifth floor conference room of the Wood County Office Building in Bowling
Green. State Sen. Randy Gardner, who represents 330,000 folks in northwest
Ohio, was holding a public hearing on state budget issues. The state is $5
billion or so short and libraries, public schools, public colleges and
universities, and health agencies among others are screaming about projected
draconian cuts. The leaders of these local agencies went through the same
humiliating squeeze two years ago.
It started 5 minutes late, but
Gardner made very brief remarks before throwing it open to the public. Unlike
Gillmor, Gardner gave the public the full amount of time, 90 minutes, that was
advertised.
About 30 people attended, two thirds
of whom were public officials. The 10 or so of us from the public got to ask
our questions, make our statements early on and the public officials largely
took over for the middle and end of the session.
Gardner
stated that he supported a 21 percent cut in the state income tax because
he believed it would help stimulate the state’s lagging economy.
I asked him if he was sure the tax
cut would have a stimulus effect because the state had been cutting the tax
most years and the economy has been slumping since 2000.
Gardner said he was not sure the
income tax had been cut all that much and he was supporting the bigger cut
regardless. Plausible answer, no doubt anticipated.
The next day, the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune carried a front-page
article about the public hearing. A color picture 6 inches wide and 5 ˝ inches
high was published in the top half of the page of Gardner nattily dressed in a
dark suit and colorful tie.
Below
the fold were pictures of three constituents, including me. Mine was about
one-sixth the size of Gardner’s, 3 inches wide and 2 inches high. My checked
shirt shows up nicely as does the pen I was holding pointing at my oversized
ear.
The account portrayed Gardner as a good-listener legislator, lack of support for education, libraries and health care notwithstanding.
Forum, meeting, hearing. Sincere
efforts to listen or clever fooling of the public. You decide.
4 Corners BG, Copyright 2005, John K. Hartman, All
Rights Reserved.