Big League Bias: Observer Publisher Knee-Deep in Transit Campaign
It's becoming increasingly difficult to tell if Charlotte Observer publisher Ann Caulkins is running a campaign or a newspaper or both.
Caulkins is knee-deep in the campaigns against the repeal of the half-cent sales tax for mass transit and for the school bond package that will go on the ballot this fall. So knee-deep, in fact, that one might wonder where the Observer ends and the campaigns for both issues begin.
Caulkins sits on the boards of directors of the Charlotte Center City Partners and the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.
On August 23, Caulkins voted with the rest of the Charlotte Center City Partners board of directors for a resolution against the repeal of the half-cent sales tax.
The resolution reads like a list of the Charlotte Observer's talking points on mass transit from its recent articles.
"Public transportation contributes positively to the lifestyles of those that live, work and visit the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and is necessary to keep Mecklenburg moving," the resolution says.
Caulkins is also a director at the Chamber, which is currently running what promise to be high-dollar campaigns in favor of the bonds and against the repeal of the transit tax.
But Caulkins, the top boss at the Observer, the woman to whom the paper's editor answers, wants to assure you that the paper is in no way biased on those topics. Nope, not biased at all.
In an email exchange yesterday with Attorney Tom Ashcraft, a transit skeptic, Caulkins actually claimed she wasn't involved in the paper's news coverage."I am a director of the Charlotte City Center Partners (sic) and the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce," Caulkins wrote. "Both organizations have passed resolutions to oppose the repeal of the mass transit system. I have recused myself from the Editorial Board on this issue and I don't oversee the newsroom. I also don't make the determinations on what news is published in the newspaper. This is the job of Rick Thames our Executive Editor. Thank you for your interest in this matter and I hope you continue to read the excellent stories we are doing on the subject."
It's a pretty incredible claim for a newspaper publisher to make, considering publishers are responsible for the editorial content of the paper and ad sales. And editors work for publishers.
"Aren't you at least responsible for the personnel who occupy positions of executive editor, managing editor, editorial page editor, etc.?" Ashcraft asked. "Or are you telling your readers that, as far as McClatchy is concerned, the Charlotte Observer is completely on auto-pilot?"
Ironically, for two years the paper's reporters have been obsessed with the fact that school board member Larry Gauvreau is also the publisher of the conservative Rhinoceros Times. It's something the Observer's writers have disparaged Gauvreau for and have never missed a chance to point out. So you've got to wonder when the newsroom planned to get around to mentioning Caulkins' extra-curricular activities to readers.
Since the transit tax repeal campaign was launched by transit opponents, the Observer has turned the lives of those involved upside down and obsessively questioned their affiliations, their motives and where their funds came from.
It's time for the paper to shine the same light on Caulkins. If the paper's coverage of these two issues is to be taken seriously in the future, readers deserve the truth and some kind of explanation from Caulkins.
And if the Observer has a shred of journalistic integrity left -- which I seriously doubt -- Caulkins will either resign from the paper or from the two groups immediately.
I'm glad that Tara draws the parallel to Gauvreau's role at the Rhino. No one could claim that his job there has turned the Rhino into a cheerleader for the school board. The Rhino has maintained its proper role as a watchdog of government. In contrast, whether it is Caulkins's fault or not, the Observer has certainly acted as a member of the uptown, government-Chamber cabal. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, readers certainly can't be faulted for calling it a duck.
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Tara -- Notice the little slip in Caulkins language. I pointed it out in an email but have yet to hear back. ---
Ann:
I believe you meant "repeal of the mass transit tax" not "repeal of the mass transit system."
As I told Bob Morgan the other day, doubting the cost effectiveness of the current $9 billion CATS plan is no more anti-transit than doubting the value of a Sub-Zero makes one anti-kitchen. Conversely favoring the immediate building of $1 billion worth of new trains does not make one pro-transit.
Perhaps one day your paper will explore this.
Regards,
Jeff A. Taylor
Contributing Editor
Carolina Journal
meckdeck.com
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, so the publisher of the OBSERVER, as a member of the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, voted to support a resolution against the transit tax repeal. Soooooooooooo, what's the big deal Tara? ? ?
I mean, Larry Gauvreau (as a CMS Board Member and as an editor of the RHINO TIMES) has voiced his .02 against the upcoming school bond referendum because money isn't being spent to spend more money in the suburbs (more particularly, his district). I don't see what the big stink is all about. As a member of the CHAMBER, doesn't the OBSERVER have a right to voice its opinion?
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I believe the argument can be made here that The Charlotte Observer is a newspaper which is in the business of reporting news.However,anyone who has read it can surely tell for themselves that it's more than just a newspaper.It's one big opinion page.The real issue here is that the taxpayers in Charlotte got hustled back in 1998.It's a fact that the cost of the lightrail project exploded.Of course when this was pointed out to the folks that pull the strings they responded by all but saying that the figures that were given in 1998 were not legitimate.Odd isn't it.Evidently it was legitimate enough for them to go and ask the taxpayers for the half cent sales tax.A Hustle.I'm sure the Charlotte Chamber and all the rest of the gang look at it from the following stand point,"We are too far into this thing to bail out now..We have got to do something and fast..We've got to go to Vegas for help!Yes John Q.Taxpayer,we really blew this one but we are not responsible and we don't want you to punish us for our screw up.Don't take our half penny sales tax away because if you do we will then be forced to increase your property tax in whole dollars." One big HUSTLE.I wonder if the folks who pull the strings in uptown Charlotte are aware that the human bowels are designed to excrete manure.I really don't think they are because they sure spend a lot of time trying to shove it up into the taxpayer's rears.
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alligence of convenience
everybody has an agenda
some merely have better access
to the bully pulpit than others
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The key to your comments is in the last paragraph. The pursuit of a liberal agenda has trumped all sense of journalistic integrity at the Observer. Keep up the great work - at WBT, the Loaf and here on your blog.
BTW: you might want to do something on the declining circulation and ad revenue numbers at McClatchy.
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Tara, if you had a dollar for every pound of muck you uncover, you would be the richest person on the face of the Earth. Keep up the good work!!
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Caulkins is probably right that she doesn't influence editorial and news content w/respect to transit. She doesn't have to.
It reminds me of something I read a few years back about the economics dept. at the University of Chicago. That department has been the elite free-market econ department in the country for the past fifty years or so. A writer asked the chair at the department if they indoctrinate their students on the good of free markets. She responded that they didn't have to - if you're going to school there, you're supposed to know that government sucks.
Same with the CO. If you write there, you're supposed to know that the line of the Chamber, et al, is the only one that can be reasonably asserted.
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off topic but worth the read.
This is just wrong on so many levels!
NBA OR NFL?
36 Have been accused of spousal abuse
7 Have been arrested for fraud
19 Have been accused of writing bad checks
117 Have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 Have done time for assault
71, repeat, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 Have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 Have been arrested for shoplifting
21 Currently are defendants in lawsuits, and
84 Have been arrested for drunk driving In The last year
Can you guess which organization this is?
NBA or NFL?
Give Up yet? . . . Scroll down,
ON DOWN FOLKS
Neither, it's the 535 members of the United States Congress.
The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year
designed
to keep the rest of us in line.
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