I’m not unhappy with the results of the Zenith story. In fact, I touted the Zenith story not only on my blog but at the Chamber of Commerce forum and that praise has found its way on the Internet. The Zenith is getting good press plus I had an ad in that issue of the Zenith.
I first heard about the story from, Liam, who sent me a text saying the Zenith had Art and Me trading blows. I hurried out to find a copy which was a challenge since they hadn’t all been distributed.
The first six or seven paragraphs did a marvelous job describing the plight of the District. It continued on to describe in full the levy questions and issues concerned with them. As the publisher explains in the email she just sent to me, the portion about Art and me was a small part of the story. It was, however, enough to pull the pin out of my grenade. Art must have sensed it because he called to smooth things over but too late for my post. Even Loren Martell had a say. I sent him a message asking him to read the Zenith piece and get back to me about it. After he read it he called to beg me not to let it cause a rift between us. I explained that it was too late as I had just sent out the blog post.
Loren told me that he had pleaded with Art not to criticize me when he spoke to the Zenith or maybe that was with journalists period. Possibly Art listened to that advice with a deaf ear.
If all Richard Thomas heard was the “Bullshit” and the “irascible” its hard to believe he would deduce from that that there was bad blood between Art and myself. I don’t recall criticizing Art but I honestly remember little other than my irascible comment. I might have gone into more detail but I was most focused on the District’s impending death spiral. At the very least Art must have said the word “bullshit” with some vehemence. Did Richard overplay our strained relations. Well, I trust the Zenith’s editor.
This is the email she sent me and I’ll treat it as an amendment to my presumptions. (Oh, and I don’t really mind the chance to have expressed myself clearly on this subject. Honesty is the best policy!) After long service in the Red Plan fight it is my opinion that Art has ended up discrediting the cause:
Hi, Harry. This paragraph in one of your blog entries from today is incorrect: Its possible that the id from long distant posts criticizing Art, something I’ve only done rarely, had been read and remembered by Richard Thomas. He’s a long time reader of the blog. Its possible he took previous criticisms of Art from long ago and Art’s dismissal of my blog and my comment about Art’s irascibility, leaped to some conclusions and blew it up into a major war.
Richard did not use any information from your blog for his current story in the Zenith. All quotes in his story came from the candidates during interviews Richard conducted the week of September 9. He did not take previous quotes from your blog and present them as if they were spoken in a recent interview. To do so would be highly misleading and beneath Richard’s standards of professionalism.
I discussed each of the interviews with Richard after he conducted them. Both you and Art made the statements about one other spontaneously. Richard did not prompt them by asking how you and Art feel about each other, nor by sharing with either of you what each of you had said about the other. In fact, Richard was surprised that the two of you had anything less-than-flattering to say about one another.
As far as “[blowing] it up into a major war,” you’re referring to three sentences in the latter part of a 1,600-word story. By now, you’ve written more in response to those three sentences than what Richard wrote about it in the first place. So I think it’s a mischaracterization to imply that Richard gave undue weight to your relationship with Art Johnston, which, on balance, is a very minor point in the story.
Granted, that’s a matter of opinion, but how Richard conducted and attributed his interviews is not a matter of opinion. He did not and would not offer past blog quotes as if they were spoken in a current interview nor put forth past quotes from Art Johnston as if they were spoken contemporaneously. Could you correct that on your blog please? Feel free to post this email if you like.
Thanks,
Jennifer Martin-Romme
