a subject near and dear to Ladd's heart.

by the way, check out Joyner's story in CL this morning.

Talk about HORRIBLE writing.

My favorite thing in the Ledge today is their heartfelt editorial about the "public's right to know." The edit-boyz write:

The Clarion-Ledger has long been a leader in Mississippi in prying open closed public record filing cabinets and closed public meeting doors. In numerous court cases, this newspaper has put its money where its mouth is to defend the public's right to know - and that's a mission to which we will remain dedicated.

Right, Ledger. What about the public's right to know that Frank Melton was wound up in a Meridian lawsuit with your newspaper during his mayoral campaign? Their right to know that he was lying under oath about not giving that memo to your reporter? Their right to know about his dishonesty when your paper enthusiastically endorsed him?

"Dedicated." Right.

(BTW, this is a teachable moment about writing:

Why write this:

and that's a mission to which we will remain dedicated.

... when you can write this:

and we will remain dedicated to that mission.

Also, do they ever meet a cliche that they don't use to death (smile):

this newspaper has put its money where its mouth is

Now. Joyner's piece certainly needed a good edit, and perhaps an ethics check. What's with all the fake drama about the person requesting the information, leading to this wanker of a sentence (or two):

All of this because someone requested a copy of a public document. In this case, the person requesting it was this Clarion-Ledger reporter, who was asked to identify himself only as an interested citizen.

Later, in the piece we learn that, maybe, it was Davis, from Missouri who told him to do it, but it's unclear.

OK, now let's look at the passives above.

Who asked Joyner only to identify himself as an interested citizen? The passive voice obscures the lack of accountability there (which the Ledger does all the time with its parade of passives).

Secondly, why did the unknown person ask Joyner not to say he was a reporter? It's a strong point of ethics that reporters identity ourselves as reporters. If they wanted to test how the county would react to a citizen request—which needs to be done—then have a citizen request the information and track the response. Don't have a reporter parading around pretending not to be a reporter. Talk about ruining trust in the media.

OK, now the following:
Fisher said that the terrorism task force and FBI were intrigued someone wanted to look at Hinds County's plan.

"We don't consider it a public document," Fisher said.

When asked if he believed his position was supported by Mississippi's laws on open government, Fisher was unconcerned.

"I'm not worried about state law," he said. "Mississippi doesn't run Hinds County."

Who is Fisher talking to here, as quoted? Joyner the reporter? The unidentified citizen? Davis? His wife?

Then more passive confusion:

FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said she could not confirm or deny whether the agency was notified someone wanted to look at the plan, which has not been updated since 1999. Emergency plans, by federal standards, are supposed to be updated annually.

Updated by whom? Clarity?

Although Fisher initially allowed the viewing of the entire document and taking notes on its contents, the county since has refused to provide the newspaper with unaltered copies of the plan.

"the viewing of" and "taking notes on" -- again, by Joyner? Why not give these sentences subjects? Why is he writing this way? It's pitiful. Where are the editors?

In addition, Fisher accused the citizen of misrepresenting himself by not immediately identifying himself as a journalist and threatened to have him arrested if he continued to push the issue.

Well, Joyner should have identified himself as a journalist. There are rare instances that can justify not telling them up front, but this is clearly not one of them. I'm all for testing the system, but The Clarion-Ledger did this poorly. I don't understand why such a large company has to continually act so amateurish. The problem here, of course, is that the county is going to use The Clarion-Ledger's adventure in sleuthing to discredit their work on something important.

we won't even get around to using fragments as sentences and then referring to himself in the third person after referring tohimself in the first.

a sentence starts with "and..."

I've emailed him before and he says that is his writing style. uh huh. He'll never move up to big leagues with that style.

Well, you can use some fragments and start some sentences with "and" in the big leagues, especially in columns. Those aren't his worst offenses. You cannot, however, fill stories with passives and cliches in the big leagues.

The whole 1st-3rd-person shift failed miserably. I'll agree with you there.

I understand the logic behind Fisher from a security standpoint. I just think they should release a general outline and keep the specifics private.

Oh, and I suspect that park of the 1st-3rd awkwardness comes from the fact that they know he should have identified himself as a reporter and are doing a little tapdance. That's especially true with Fisher going after them for playing such a silly game.

This is a 101 lesson. When you use unneeded (and dishonest, even by omission) reporting tricks, the other side will use them to bite you in the a**, even if your larger point is a good one.

The big argument that public officials make against media getting info in the first place is that reporters misuse and report it out of context in a dishonest way. They're not always right, and it's surely a shifting-the-blame game, but they are correct often enough that it helps erode the credibility of media, not to mention our arguments for needing to get the info in the first place.

I mean, Mr. Joyner quoted me out of context last year after I wrote the letter to Council complaining about the problems with the Ledger-Melton's proposed open-records settlement. (We were right; the settlement had to be altered.) He called me to ask why, and I explained my reasons, and told him specifically that I would only talk to him if he included my entire point, and not cherrypick what I said.

He cherrypicked.

All this said, I don't blame these green reporters. I blame a pitiful editorial staff for letting stuff like this happen in the first place, and for not editing these stories into something vaguely literate before they run. They're hurting these guys' career potential by not working with them closer. Of course, there's likely a cycle of mediocrity there that means that those editors didn't get the guidance they need, so they don't know how to mentor these young reporters. That's certainly what the product indicates. I can't imagine that they would know better—and still let such bad work get into print.

'Fish, I think it's a debate that needs to happen. I can at least see an argument that the terrorists don't need to know all our emergency plans. Unfortunately, the Ledger is just playing juvenile gotcha! on this rather than fleshing out the issues.

Yup.

do we really need open to the public which local units will be tasked to what geographic area or what their logistical plan will be thus giving a person planning a terrorist attack the info to screw up the first responders or better yet, take out the first responders (or take them out before you take out your main target)? It is a worthy debate, not just gotcha.

as an aside, one of my pet peeves. Go to Thompson Field. There in big letters it says "SECURITY POLICE" on the front of the security building. They have cargo jets there which require MP's. Good job to advertise where your security personnel are. If I'm a terrorist guess what I am hitting first before I hit the planes?

Maybe it's a decoy. ;-)

I can assure you personally that it is not.

OK, more passive hell courtesy of The Clarion-Ledger. Today:

The charrettes, which are part of that process, are being conducted by Barranco Architecture and Duany, Plater-Zyberk & Company.

Proponents have said the project will provide economic benefits by creating hundreds of acres of developable waterfront real estate. Detractors worry that the environment would be adversely affected, and concerns have been raised over the potential to destroy natural habitats.

OK, that's three blatant passives in three sentences. How does this kind of writing get into print??? Do they have editors? (Don't answer that.)

Not to mention this sentence:

Proponents have said the project will provide economic benefits by creating hundreds of acres of developable waterfront real estate

How about: "Proponents say the project will create hundreds of acres of developable waterfront real estate."

Obviously that would provide an econonic benefit so that part isn't needed. And the word "hundreds of acres of developable"? Bet it wouldn't take us a minute to come up with a way to rework that clunker.

But the passives are just pitiful.

At least today they finally came close to calling them Barranco ARCHITECTS instead of Barranco Engineering, which was driving me nuts everytime I read it.

Here's some sentence leading today's Clarion-Ledger editorial:

If there was anything accomplished in the week-long charette on a proposed flood-control/development project on the Pearl River, it is that Jackson must consider the possibilities.

So the "anything" accomplished was "that Jackson must consider the possibilities"?

What language is this?

possibilities of what?

King, what's up with y'all's Attorney General of the U.S. firing good and excellent U. S. Attorneys doing their jobs which includes occasionally prosecuting repubs for misconduct? How long can you and Cliff walk this way? Have y'all no shame at all? I stopped fishing because of repubs. Every time I dugged within the earth's surface looking for bates I kept seeing repubs hiding beneath them and running from the law. Y'all have dropped and fallen so low that I have to kick through mud and sewage just to make contact. I may start a forum on this.

knock it off.

I am sure you were JUST as outraged when Clinton fired all 93 US Attorneys on the first day he assumed office, which was unprecedented.

And that included a major prosecution up in NY of a labor union and its corruption who was one of Clinton's biggest supporters.

I'm sure that really burned you up.

Quit being an apologist.

I have no such knowlwdge. Surely I would have been outraged if it weren't warranted. They needed firing, they were leftover from Bush I, and weren't prosecuting Clinton or Democrats for being wolves in sheep clothing. The recent firings have nothing in common to Clinton's administation.

King, since I like you and Cliff, why don't ya'll do something positive to help the country. Become a modern day Democrat, something that would let you sleep good at night. I'm out.

on day 1 he fired ALL US Attorneys.

That had never happend before. All 93 were gone. period. Nothing to do with holdovers. No president had ever done that before. It was also well covered.

And when Bush I was in office, Dingell and his pals used to put pressure on US attorneys on prosecutions quite a bit.

These are Bush's employees anyway, he can fire them if he so chooses. He is merely exercising the same power that Clinton did on a much more limited scale.

As ya'll are discusing journalism in this thread, could some of the JFP journalist do some looking into what a gem The Spot nightclub has become for the city of Jackson. I understand there were some civil rights violations of a young mother of two that originated from that parking lot. I have heard nothing of this on this site and I can't count on The Ledge to give me the accurate story...

That's the first we've heard of it, colby. We need to talk to the young mother, or witnesses, in order to report it.

If the JFP is looking for material (there hasn't seemed to be any shortage lately), I wish that you guys would figure out how I managed to get 18.5 gallons of $2.39 gasoline into my 17 gallon gas tank the other day, even though the gauge in my car said I still had an 1/8 of a tank.

The official looking sticker on the pump says that "the accuracy of this device is the responsibility of the owner"- right... This is the butcher's thumb of the new millennium!!!!

Isn't this where the fender bender occured a two guys followed the woman and passengers then fatally shot the driver and a passenger? This a senseless murder and one of the reason I rarely go to clubs anymore. Isn't this also the place where Fred Smoots got his roll royce damaged? I formerly thought this was a safe place to watch sports and shoot the bull with out of town visitors.

yeah, it was a civil rights violation. She is dead.