Forum communications has about as much respect for its duty to journalism as the Duluth School Board does to education or the public.
As contemptuous as I have been of Forum Communications and its lackeys in DNT management I feel for the reporters at the Trib. Among the better reporters is poor old Jason Stahl who is fighting a last ditch effort to save the remnants of the reporting pool at the paper.
Not surprisingly I appreciate his blog observations today which includes this:
And so it’s baffling to me what the school board did last night, which, if I understand, was to make a major decision on names for the future high schools last night that wasn’t on its agenda. Had DNT reporter Jana Hollingsworth not been there last night, the public might still not know about the decision.
I follow the school board and its decisions like an average citizen — basically what I know is what I read on the paper or what I see on TV. While I can’t speak out on an issue, at least I feel OK in the knowledge that their decisions were made with fair warning to the public that one was coming. But not this time. It doesn’t seem even legal to me that the board can introduce a resolution that night and vote on it, which is why I have a call into Minnesota Newspaper Attorney Mark Anfinson to find out what the law states on this. But even if it was legal, it doesn’t seem right.
