This may be the first time I've linke to ABC 26 but nice of them to join the party. It's punditry, not reporting, but a brave stance nonetheless:
Diana Bajoie properties:
1421, 1423, 1425, 1427 N. Johnson Street in 7th Ward. The owner address is listed as :1833 8th Street New Orleans, LA for Diana Bajoie. (Under Road Home Small Rental Property Incentive Payment Agreement).
1833 8th Street, New Orleans, LA in Central City. The owner address is listed as the same for Diana Bajoie.
2035 Marengo Street, New Orleans in Milan area. The owner address is listed as the same for Diana Bajoie. (Road Home Grant recipient).
3219 & 3221 Montegut Street, New Orleans in Desire Area. The owner address is 2035 Marengo Street, New Orleans for Diana Bajoie.
4042 & 4050 S. Saratoga St., New Orleans in Milan area is owned by Diana Bajoie. The owner address is 2035 Marengo St, New Orleans for Diana Bajoie.
4120 & 1422 S. Liberty Street, New Orleans in Milan area is owned by Diana Bajoie. The owner address is listed as PO Box 15166, New Orleans, LA 70175
4129 S. Liberty Street, New Orleans in the Milan area is owned by Julie Roudeze Bajoie (Bajoie's sister in law & husband of Olander Jr.). The owner address is 2303 Milan Street.
2303, 2305 Milan Street, New Orleans in the Central City area is owned by Julie R. Bajoie (Olander Bajoie Jr. wife). The owner address is 2303 Milan Street, NO, LA. (Road Home recipient)
2023 Washington Ave, New Orleans in Central City area is owned by Julie R. Bajoie. The owner address is 2303 Milan Street, NO, LA.
3324 Feliciana St in Desire area is owned by Olander P. Bajoie (Diana's brother). The owner address is 9104 Arbor Creek Drive, NO, LA.
3421 Loyola Ave is owned by Olander Paul Bajoie Jr. in Milan area. The owner addres is 3421 Loyola Ave, NO, LA.
2404 & 2406 Marengo St is owned by Pamela E. Laners in the Milan area. The owners address is 2406 Marengo St, NO, LA. (Road Home grant recipient)
Aside from Bajoie-Ford’s salary, SUNO has about $62,500 of documented expenditures for thee Economic and Urban Tourism program. Many of them, such as a membership in the Krewe of Oshun, stray from the program’s stated purpose of assisting small, minority-owned tourism businesses with advertising, marketing and development.
Also, thousands of dollars were spent on catered events and excursions such as a guided swamp tour.
Lucy got some 'splainin to do but Lucy ain't talkin'....or remeberin'
- Bajoie-Ford has not responded to several calls or email.
- University officials so far are unable to explain Bajoie-Ford’s payment schedule, and Diana Bajoie says she doesn’t recall the earmarks.
With a memory like that should she really be serving in City Council? Is the mayor seriously going to keep defending this woman's "integrity"? How much damage can she do between now and the next District B election?
David over at Confederacy of Dunces has picked up the trail of the con-profit tip I got on Bajoie. Turns out, in 2005, the New Orleans Urban Tourism Hospitality Training and Economic Development Foundation got up to 100k of state gaming revenue dedicated to them from the Fairgrounds' slot machines.
This business proposition appears to have been negotiated and enacted into law by the Louisiana legislature.
What is the acronym for this one? NOUTHTEDF. We need a nickname for this thing....you guys get busy.
Anyway, I checked the legislative auditor's database and I couldn't find any audits on them. I'm going to call Monday to see if there is anything that may not be on the website.
David brings up another interesting observation:
It’s not clear what the Foundation does but it’s registered with the state as a non-profit corporation. It lists Orlando Bajoie as a Director, with an address at 3421 Loyola. But this appears to be a typo since other records filed with the Secretary of State of an “Olander” Bajoie are also listed at 3421 Loyola. Olander Bajoie is the brother of Diana.
This is a Google street view of the address, 3435 Magnolia, where the entity is registered:
This is the street view of the address "Orlando" Bajoie, 3421 Loyola Ave., lists as the Director of the organization:
Another interesting flag on this thing is that their status was revoked on 11/19/2010 but they were then reinstated on 6/4/2011.
They are currently not in good standing.
It must still be operational if they reinstated it in 2011, right?
This has all the hallmarks of a classic Jeffersonian con-profit. If anyone knows how to get their audits, please advise.
I was waiting to speak to Sharon DeLong before I posted but Myers had apparently already ran circles around me. I guess that is the result of actually getting paid to do the job. I had to work in my real life for the past week and couldn't follow up on it but I'm glad City Business did.
When I spoke to the state legislative auditor's office, the way it was explained to me was that even though the annual 100k was appropriated by the state treasury from 2007 to 2010, the New Orleans Urban Tourism Hospitality Training and Economic Development Foundation did not receive the accrued 300k + in funds because the entity had failed to meet the contract requirements to receive the cash.
That would explain this:
The state transferred $306,251 from the fund to its Medicaid program last year.
So 2011 is the first year the entity actually met the requirements and received the 100k. Their audit is due within the month but it's a general overview of the entity and most likely won't be that revealing.
This is the budget that was submitted to the state legislative office for 2011.
Most notable is the list of job descriptions for the contracted employees:
So out of the $97,482.17 that the entity received, $83,900 is going to pay the five contractors for services. That's 86% of the organization's budget that is directed to contractors' salaries.
(cough...spit).
I didn't want to publish anything until I gave DeLong the benefit of the doubt and tried to find out exactly what the entity does. After reading Myers' article, I still don't know what they do. I don't understand where the "hospitality training" comes in and why it is even a necessary service to private industries in the city.
I could not find a phone number for the entity or DeLong but I was able to reach Charles F. Webb, the accountant. He gave me a phone number to reach DeLong on behalf of the entity, 504-589-1860. That is no longer a working number. There is no website or contact information for the entity that I can find and their actual location is a bigger mystery:
The organization, which operates the Milan-Broadmoor Senior Center
Program, is housed in the city-owned Allie Mae Williams service campus
in Central City between Jackson Avenue and Philip Street. The lease
arrangement calls for the tourism foundation to rent 1,000 feet of space
at 2020 Jackson Ave. for $800 per month from July 2011 to this month.
Copies of checks show the tourism foundation paid at least $4,800 in
rent in from August to March. Two vacant, city-owned properties are
located at that address, in back of the complex. The foundation lists
the address as its official domicile in a contract with the state
treasury but a different address, DeLong’s home on Magnolia Street, in
state corporation records.
All in all...this stinks pretty badly. I still would like to get in contact with DeLong and find out exactly what the entity's mission statement is. Right now it looks like a whole lot of nothing for 100k in public money. I would also like to find out if the entity receives funding from other sources, private or public.
The entire rent scenario reeks of a classic Jeffersonian con-profit.
I think we have lot to be worried about with Mayor Landrieu's hand-picked handmaiden, Diana Bajoie.
This post will by my 1818th entry on The American Zombie since the first on July 4th, 2006.
In the past month I have found myself reflecting, heavily, on this thing I've done....this blog. At times I've been extremely proud and other times I've felt like it was an enormous burden, even a threat to myself and my family. Truth is, in the past few months it's felt like an exceptional burden.
It started it as an experiment. Upon the completion of the documentary, Left Behind, I made with Dr. Vince Morelli, I came to the conclusion that the root of this City's problem was its education system and the root of our education system's problem was corruption. I discovered there was not a lack of money in the Orleans Parish School System but that the funds were simply being stolen at nearly every turn to the great detriment of our children.
I figured the blog was a way to possibly expose the entrenched corruption that exists within so many layers of New Orleans/Louisiana government. I was naive enough to think that I could affect change simply by exercising the powers of the First Amendment.
From that original "thunk" I have devoted an enormous amount of time, energy and money into this experiment and there's not a day that goes by I don't think about it....wondering if it's worth it...feeling guilty because I've neglected one or more stories...thinking about how much more effective it might be if I devoted all of my time to it....worrying about who I might have pissed off and if it would affect my income stream....wondering how it will affect my children as they become adults....
.....it weighs on me a lot. Lately it has weighed on me more than usual.
I have to admit that I've reached a point where I don't think my efforts are actually affecting social and/or governmental change and if I'm not doing that I don't think it's worth the effort. As my father used to tell me, "Don't half-ass do anything, Son. Otherwise you're just pissing in the wind."
Truth is, I feel hopeless.
When I started AZ I was writing under the assumption that our justice system was...just. I believed that if I simply told the truth and exposed criminal activity, city, state and federal law enforcement officials would pay attention and rectify the problems.
I believed justice was truly blind and the rule of law was real, the system simply needed people to exercise the First Amendment in order to set the wheels in motion.
What I believed, in the beginning, was that there was an avenue for recourse if the average citizen just woke up from their slumber (hence "The American Zombie") and cast a a light on the corruption that existed in their community.
Now, I'm not so sure.
The corruption within this state is intrinsic...hereditary even. It is so prevalent, we have come to simply accept it as the modus operandi.
Any reform we saw on a local level, in post-Katrina New Orleans, is a faded dream. Even the dreamers were defiled.
They lie. They fucking lie. But we keep buying their bullshit.
If you read this blog...even if you don't...what I hope you will understand is that none of these people have the public's best interest at heart. It doesn't benefit any of them....any of them....to create a healthy, educated, populous in an environmentally safe Louisiana. They want idiots and this state is ripe by design. Idiots more concerned about what two grown men choose to do with their sexuality than a Congressman fleecing a public university.
We are trapped inside a juvenile interpretation of the Hegelian Dialectic.
The corruption in this State and City is insulated, obscured, behind the political dichotomy of left/right. In New Orleans, democrats are protected from prosecution by the local political machine while on the state level republicans' transgressions are overlooked and written off as "minor issues".
They are all stealing public money. All of them. They are all using tax dollars as their own 0% interest, no money down, no principle owed...bank.
Patrick Juneau illegally billed the state of Louisiana. He is not a democrat or republican, he's just an opportunistic old man that will do whatever either reigning "party master" asks him to do in order to enrich his own bank account.
We are standing on the deck of ship, floating in a sea of corruption with no rudder, no mast, no sail, holes in the hull, arguing about the weather while our politicians take the cargo and sail off in lifeboats.
Thing is, I've busted my own ass on at least two of these stories and liberated information on the third while many other reporters busted their ass to do the same. The Fourth Estate has fulfilled it's duty, not just my small contribution but the body, whole. The evidence is convincing, overwhelming on the issues listed above.
LSU would never conduct an honest audit on Cassidy. No university would. Not Loyola, Tulane, or even UNO as it fades into obscurity. They are all deeply entrenched in political interests on both city and state levels. University employees will not talk to their own institution's investigators for fear of losing their job. These things need to be audited by our state regulatory agencies....it's their job, it's their duty.
This...these moments....are where we traditionally fail, Louisiana. Let's not fail again. Let's not kick the can down the road and allow business as usual.
We have a problem here. It's systemic. It's destructive. Please. Please. Please....investigate.
This is one of those posts I’ve been subconsciously avoiding putting pixels down on for quite a while. There is so much running through my head on the matter it’s a daunting task to download my thoughts into a quasi-comprehensible essay but I’ve let it go too long and I need a good mental enema on the subject so I can move on to bigger and better thunks. Therefore, I’m about to lay a big dump on you guys so you can stop reading now if you don’t want to be tortured by the inner workings of my noodle.
The subject is the current state of New Orleans’ media (online and offline), the fallout of Newhouse’s cull of the Times-Picayune, and the state of investigative journalism in the city. I think I have a somewhat unique perspective on these issues and I’d like to share that perspective with AZ readers so you can at least know some of the things I have learned over the past six years of writing this blog. I’m probably going to ruffle some feathers but this is an industry of feather rufflers so I’m guessing we can take our medicine without any hard feelings. At least I’m hoping that’s the case.
What have we lost?
In the wake of Newhouse’s heartless cull of the Time-Picayune, I think it’s important to step outside our collective outrage and ask ourselves...what...exactly....are we losing? Besides a physical paper being printed daily (I’m not not necessarily poo-pooing that aspect but I’m also not going to focus on it because I think it’s not as big a deal as everyone else thinks it is), what are the tangible “qualities” of the Times-Picayune that are forever lost?
In order to answer that question I think we have to first set aside our sense of nostalgia for the medium, newspapers, and even the brand, The Times-Picayune, and look at the function of the entity instead of the mere form. I realize the form aspects are deeply personal to readers and newspaper folks alike but I think the bigger issue is to examine the qualitative elements of “journalism (angels singing, trumpets blowing”) that are now diminished or even lost by Newhouse’s machinations. In order to understand that we have to look at what the function of journalism is.
Here are the primary functions of a localized journalistic entity as I see it:
To record events for the historic record.
To inform the public of events in their community, i.e., governance, business, social issues, cultural issues, etc.
To seek out information that might not be readily available to the public but greatly affects the public, i.e., hidden legislation, public corruption, private/public real estate transactions, etc.
To provide information on candidates for public office and/or private individuals who may affect the community as a whole.
Those items, to me, should be the goals of any journalistic entity...newspaper, magazine, television station, radio station, website, and yes...blog (at least of the variety of AZ). A quick summary would be, “to inform the public”. Under the banner of the 1st amendment, a journalistic entity’s sole purpose should be to keep the community they serve informed at all costs...all costs. It should even be put above the entity’s capitalistic goals.....in theory.
What we are currently seeing with Newhouse and the Times-Picayune scenario defies that last sentiment. I think that single point is at the root of our outrage. We know that the Times-Picayune was still profitable under the business model it was implementing previous to the Newhouse cull. Most of us believe that while not perfect, the staff of the TP was exceptional on the whole in comparison to other metropolitan newspapers in the U.S. I believe that the TP was providing all of the essential elements of a journalistic entity that I listed above...and usually doing that rather well....sometimes exceptionally.
We had it nice, Nawlins....we really did.
I think it is very apparent to this community that Newhouse’s decision was not based on the quality of the product they were providing. This decision was clearly a financial decision. In fact, it’s even worse than that....it was a speculative, financial decision. They have sacrificed quality for quantity in a cold, harsh capitalistic move. If they were a company that makes cufflinks, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
But the Times-Picayune is something so much more than a mere business model. It's a business that provides a vital and necessary service to the public. The TP is a critical element of our democracy. We've relied on the publication for decades to tell us what's fo' true.
We've also taken it for granted....until now.
The move has enraged the deeply loyal New Orleans community and reverberated across the country as the death knell for not only physical newspapers but a critical element of democracy in general. It is a distinct milestone of corporate interests superseding the best interests of the public in what I believe is the most vital part of our republic: the fourth estate and by proxy the first amendment.
I suppose I don’t have to point out that capitalism and democracy aren’t necessarily congruent processes. But I would like to point out that sometimes they are and quite often when we least expect it...I’ll expound in a minute.
Was it really a good business decision?
Jim Collins’ books, particularly “Built to Last” and “Good to Great”, are required reading in many business schools around America. I’m a horrible business man but I have read both of those books and I clearly understand what the collected data in the books show along with Collins (and his team)’s interpretation. To summarize, “Find one thing and do it better than anyone else”.
In other words, don’t try to create a monopoly on a quantitative model....create a monopoly on quality.
Newhouse just did the exact opposite. Not only did they do the opposite, they sacrificed an existing qualitative monopoly to pursue a speculative quantitative venture. Maybe the business game has changed since Collins published his thesis but somehow I think this Newhouse move is going to end up in a future Collins’ book as a dire warning.
I suppose they could argue that evolving technology forced their hand....there were companies at the turn of the 20th century that were really good at creating horse drawn buggies....but in this case they not only culled the workforce they had which made the physical paper, they culled the talent that filled the paper up with the content that sold the papers. They culled their monopoly on journalism in the city.
Not only did they sacrifice that monopoly, they are attempting to migrate the function of that monopoly into a horridly inferior form....Nola.com. I realize I don’t have a lot of room to talk here, the form of this blog is highly lacking but I am a one man crew. Nola.com is now the flagship of the entire Newhouse entity in New Orleans and it has never, ever, ever come close to empowering the strengths and qualities of the Times-Picayune as a journalistic resource.
Try doing a simple search for a story on Nola.com’s search engine...you will have much better luck finding what you’re looking for on the site if you use Google. A couple of weeks ago I was trying to find a story that had just been referenced the day before in one of their articles and I couldn’t find it anywhere in their archives.
This is a very disconcerting factor when looking at my number one function of a journalistic entity: to record events for the historical record. If you’ve got stories that are only being published online, what is their archiving policy? Better yet, what is their editorial policy of those stories? Can they be altered in archive? Have they broached these questions? When you’ve got a room full of reporters rushing to publish information online as fast as they can....when does the edit finish? I’ve watched stories change before my eyes on Nola.com. I’m not necessarily saying this isn’t ethical I’m just curious when is a story considered “printed”.
I’m not sure Newhouse even understands what their own vision is.
I’m trying to think of a good analogy here....they just took the staff of a profitable, quality, four star restaurant, fired nearly half of them and are now trying to squeeze them into a taco truck while providing lip service to their customers that everything will be just as good as it ever was.
No offense against taco trucks...I’m a taco truck.
Alright, let’s get back to the original question, “What have we lost?”. I think the most important thing we have lost as a city is the quality of journalism that the TP provided.
What do I mean by “quality of journalism”? Let me dig back into the murky, alkaloid-riddled past which is my college career and see if I can muster up an answer.
The golden rule of journalism
I still don’t know if I would call blogging, “journalism”. In the most direct interpretation of the word I think it absolutely qualifies...it is “journaling” information. But unlike many journalists who end up in the profession, I actually studied journalism in college (majored in broadcast journalism/anthropology at the University of Mississippi) and I was beat over the head with a single, sacred praxis ...objectivity. Most blogs are certainly not objective...especially this one.
Nonetheless, objectivity is the golden rule of journalism. I get it. I know the playbook. I understand why a journalist must strive for objectivity and I have great respect for that ethical code. I actually understand it on a much deeper level because it also happens to be a guiding principle in anthropology as well.
I think the qualitative factor that we most admired in the Times-Picayune was their level of objectivity. I know there are a lot folks rolling their eyes at that statement but just hear me out and I think I can bring you back to my perspective...after I bash the hell out of them.
There supposedly exists an iron curtain in a newsroom between reporting/opinion, facts/conjecture, journalism/punditry. If you’ve ever seen the incredible Ron Howard film, The Paper, Robert Duvall plays the role of Bernie White, the publisher of a fictional NYC tabloid called the New York Sun. Bernie loathes editorials....he despises the fact that he even has to publish “opinion” in his paper.
The movie was made in 1994 during the birth pangs of the internet and I suspect if Bernie White was still alive in 2012 and witnessed the birth of “internet journalism” he would now be a hopeless, bitter alcoholic who had completely withdrawn from society. The coalescence of journalism and opinion has manifested itself in ways Bernie couldn’t have dreamed of in the internet age where almost everyone has the power of the press. A purist like Bernie White would loathe American Zombie and I’m sure there are some real world folks who consider this blog “A pox on investigative journalism in the city”.
James Gill eloquently broached the issue of opinion and objectivity within a news entity during the Vitter/Melancon race:
Gill downgraded the iron wall to a Chinese wall and rightly so. Anyone who has read the Times-Picayune on a regular basis will have noticed the osmotic flow of information...privileged information...that flows through the membrane that separates the TP's "reporters" and "commentators" (if you haven’t noticed, I will point one very personal instance of this phenomenon out further into this rant).
In contrast to a paper, most television newsrooms have no semblance of a Chinese wall between reporting and punditry because they simply don’t need it. Local broadcast news entities simply don't have time to add punditry into their 10-15 minute news blocks and 30 second to 2 minute news stories before they have to move on to what most people really watch local broadcast news for...the weather.
My broadcast journalism instructor used to tell us, “The second coming of Christ gets 2:10.”, even though I never really bought into that rule.
However, a television reporter does have a distinct advantage over a newspaper writer when it comes to injecting opinion...we get to hear a television reporter’s inflection as he/she narrates the story and we get to see their facial expressions. Can you hear Lee Zurik or Norman Robinson’s voice in your head right now?
Why present editorial opinion The answer is simple enough. We think it’s necessary.
This station believes New Orleans needs another voice, another attitude, another opinion. But we further believe it should, it must be a responsible voice, a responsible attitude, a responsible opinion. This we intend to provide.
New Orleans, almost overnight, has found itself propelled to the very forefront of an incredible age of space. We need great leaders, we need men of ability, we need ideas. Our leaders we elect, men of ability, we can train. Ideas are harder to come by.
It is the fervent prayer of this station, that the ideas we may project in our editorials can, tomorrow, next week, next month, through the years, help provide for this, our New Orleans, and you, our people, a bright, happy future.”
Half a century later, do you think Johnson was right? I don’t know. I’m not saying he was or wasn’t right, I’m just asking if his editorials actually made the city a “brighter, happier place”. Did his opinion really bear fruit as to the direction of the city or was it irrelevant to the simple, unbiased facts presented by the traditional news entities in New Orleans? Did WWL-TV editorials “create great leaders, train men of ability, and foster new ideas”?
I don’t know the answer to those questions but what I think I do know is that there truly is no such thing as “pure objectivity” in journalism. I think some entities lean towards it more than others but Gill’s Chinese wall has always placed him on the inside of a Chinese democracy...the Times-Picayune newsroom. The information he’s getting is already biased by the time he gets it.
Phil Johnson’s “ideas” were mostly birthed on an island called the WWL-TV newsroom and not from firsthand experience.
My point? There is no such thing as true objectivity.
Regardless of how much journalists pretend, they are never purely objective. That doesn’t mean one should strive for pure subjectivity or simply ignore the rules they teach in journalism schools. It simply means it’s important to do gut checks....realize that sometimes no matter what lengths you go to in order to get the story right and be objective you will ultimately only half-ass succeed at it. But the effort is what creates the quality...it is noticed even by the laymen. The effort to lay it out accurately and without bias is what comprises the “quality” in journalism and any cogent person who reads a story will recognize it.
I don’t know how to build cars but I recognize a well built car when I see it. I don’t know how a Mercedes-Benz is built but I recognize the time and effort that went towards its creation. Although I rarely get to notice it.
What is objectivity in the Brave Newhouse World?
“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects...totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.” - Aldous Huxley
Objectivity in a newsroom does not lie solely on a reporter’s shoulders, it first begins with the news director who decides what that reporter should actually be writing about and works its way through editors, producers, photojournalists (yes they can drive and affect a story as much as any written word), publishers and Dambala forbid...corporate owners.
Through the six year span of this blog I can recall many examples of “failure to report” by all of our local news outlets.
Most recently, I would reference the Hospitality Zone legislation where power brokers in the city attempted to strong arm a bill through the state legislature that would have consolidated tremendous power and money into the hands of a select few private interests and individuals in the city...even the power to tax without representation and imminent domain (as the original bill was written). We heard very little from our local television stations on the matter and this matter was bigger than anything this city has seen during the current mayor’s tenure with the exception of, perhaps, crime. It affected every single citizen in this city and would have shaped the future landscape of New Orleans in dramatic ways....gentrifying ways.
The TP and City Business did report on the subject and even added conjecture to oppose the bill as it was originally authored. Good on them. I think the TP lived up to Johnson’s good journalism vision on both fronts, objectively and subjectively.
As I stated before, WWL-TV shut down Lucy Bustamante after she had jumped every hurdle and found even more egregious examples of con-profits around the city.
The TP went one step further...they plucked a single claim I made about Richmond buying a diamond bezel for a Rolex watch on A nonprofit credit card and ignored every other criminal, verifiable fact I had reported about the two nonprofits. Never mind all of the other issues I had brought up that actually had a paper trail...they seemed to be concerned only with what they could disprove about AZ’s claims and the Rolex was a glaring opportunity.
It was a glaring opportunity because Richmond’s campaign had managed to coerce the jeweler, Jack Sutton, into recanting his original claims to four separate reporters that led me to write the story and the campaign even managed to produce a receipt that contradicted the allegation. A receipt that completely contradicted Sutton’s original story. The back story on this is a long, sordid tale but suffice to say that I have always admitted fault on this blog when I get things wrong. I believe with 100% conviction that I did not get this wrong.
Regardless, the other side of the TP's Chinese wall saw fit to pick up the opportunity to bash “blogs” and run with it...and run...and run. Garlandfill even jumped on the bandwagon and ranted, “You can’t trust these blogs!”. Oh, the irony.
I point all this out because Richmond is now our congressman. The majority of the public did not get the full story. The pundits on the other side of the Chinese wall didn’t know the full story.
However, a handful of reporters knew the story, the people on both sides of the campaigns now know the full story, Jack Sutton knows the story....Cedric Richmond and Ike Spears know the story....the public does not. I’m not sure if it would have made a difference in the election or not but I believe the public deserves to know this candidate we sent to Washington, D.C. was running the same scam City Business and I are raking Diana Bajoie over the coals for now. The same scam that sent the majority of the Jefferson clan to jail.
(By the way...why hasn’t Archie Jefferson been charged with murder?)
The public wasn’t informed of these issues because it simply wasn’t fully reported by the MSM resources.
As Huxley stated, the decision on whether or not to report a story is perhaps the most critical issue of objectivity in journalism. By downsizing the TP staff, Newhouse has not only limited the choice to tell a story, it’s limited the ability to tell stories especially in regards to the loss of beat reporters. This....this....is what we’ve really lost. The medium itself, the loss of the brand....all these things are irrelevant in respect to the loss of the ability to tell stories and inform the public. There is no technology that can supplant a set of human eyes and ears...a reporter....following and researching a story.
Who is the most objective?
Obviously I don’t think the TP was perfect but as I stated earlier I don’t think it was that darn shabby either. Now...I don’t see how it could possibly be anything other than a shell of what it formerly was. From my perspective in the past five years of writing this blog, and you must admit it is a very unique perspecitve, I believe the TP has, on the whole, been the most objective news entity in the city. Seriously.
If I had to rank New Orleans entities in respect to objectivity....actually, I don’t have to and probably shouldn’t but I’m going to anyway....here's how I see it:
Fox 8 - This is, of course, after Zurik arrived. Now keep in mind I think they are still subject to much corporate pressure but it’s pretty easy to figure out if you just look at the intersection of Tom Bentsen’s interests and the current news cycle. Zurik has definitely gone into unchartered territory with Jiffa the Hutt, Admiral Klumpp-at-the-bar, and most notably his “Dirty Deeds” dig. Still...there’s the Val Bracy issue....a major black eye on the station.
WDSU - While Travers Mack and the gang at channel 6 aren’t quite running at the same speed as Zurik and Fox 8, I still have to put them at the third position.
WWL-TV - Yeah, I know this goes against traditional knowledge to put channel 4 so low but I’ve simply seen too much while writing this blog and after all this is completely my perspective. I have high hopes though, as they just picked up two of the heavy hitters from the TP, David Hammer (thanks for that HT, sir) and Brendan McCarthy. Obviously, they are getting serious again and my wife is particularly excited at the prospect of seeing Mr. Hammer in 1080i as she recently commented, “He’s soooo cute!”
ABC 26:
Nuff' said.
I’m not including other entities because I was trying to stick to the daily MSM entities that do investigative reporting. Gambit, Jeremy Alford, and the crew have done some great stuff and so has City Business as of late but by nature I think weeklies and monthlies will always be more subjective simply because it’s the nature of the beast.
I’m not even including radio stations because it’s almost all punditry.
The Lens has certainly kicked ass in the past few years but I’m not sure if it qualifies as a daily or MSM. If it does it may be number 2...or even numero uno.
We are a slap in the face to objectivity. But you know what? I think that’s healthy.
We’re not supposed to be objective.
Honest? Yes. Accurate? As much as possible. Fair and balanced? Not a fucking chance. And you know what? I think that is a good thing. We have no corporate masters. Nor do we have a corporate safety net. My news director is my subconscious. I write about whatever the hell I want to, when I want to...as much as I want to.
Most of us are simply pissed off citizens sending dispatches from the fringes of the city where we dwell. Angry beat reporters, if you will.
There are still some people who are from that world—Seymour Hersh is a great example. The guy grew up in newspapers and still just fucking hates people, and works in this dirty little office in Washington—he doesn't do fancy lunches.
Not that bloggers are of the same caliber as Hersh but the motivus is the same.
Another excerpt from Phil Johnson’s first WWL-TV editorial:
“Commentary that will aim not to provide but to educate. Not to offend, but to explain; not to mislead, on the contrary, to seek only truth.”
I agree on everything....except the “not to offend” part. Considering the offenses perpetrated on this community by crooked rat bastards since Johnson spoke those words in 1962, I think it’s clearly time the rat bastards get their share of "offense"...but I appreciate his objectivity.
I digress...I really digressed.
Maybe things ain’t so bad after all
Let me point out # 4 in that list again. We didn’t lose Hammer and McCarthy. In fact, I’m kind of excited to see what kind of fire is now lit under their asses and WWL-TV’s arse. Can you imagine those two guys with Zurik’s resources and air time?
You know earlier on when I said sometimes harsh capitalistic decisions have a strange way of serving democracy? Maybe this is one of those strange times.
I feel rather randy about it.
Summary
When you strip everything away...I think the most important thing the city of New Orleans has lost from Newhouse’s wonder dump is the journalistic objectivity provided by the Times-Picayune.
