Thursday, July 27, 2006

S.O.C. (save our city)

OK, I can see you guys are all in a lather over my blue-eyed soul post so now that you've had time to calm down it's time for me to start complaining again. The new News and Review is out today. I can't read KW's review yet because even though it's only 11:15 I'm ravenously hungry. From just skimming my eyes over it it sounds amazing, and I'm on the Korean tip lately, too, so I'll have to go. She also clues the readers in to a Philipino market that I hope to be visiting soon. So far, so good, right? Another lighthearted column from Becca Costello, that's her deal, this week she dressed up like Dinger. The problem here? Our entire city is being sold up the river by the mayor and city council (I know I'm being dramatic but it IS dramatic) and they are barely reporting on it. This city is filled with muck about knee deep and they are not raking it. There are so many stories to be looked into and this week the cover story is about the Placer county eco-terrorists. Cosmo wrote it, and i'm sure it's a good, well-researched article. Last week the cover story was about people in Sac who have creative jobs. Where's the sense of urgency? Where's the digging? Why aren't they busting the chops of the city council, the mayor, channel 10, the Bee, the Maloofs, Thomas enterprises etc. every single week? There are billions at stake here and this city is in the midst of what looks like a gold rush to developers all over the country and most people downtown and in surrounding areas don't know and it's debatable whether they care. But some of the back-door dealing and alliances are pretty scandalous so it can be juicy depending on how you look at it. The Bee won't do it, and no one else has the resources to do it, we need the News and Review to have our back. Cosmo has written some good urban planning articles in the past, but we need more! There really is no other issue as important in Sac for now (besides flood control, but there's plenty of muck to be raked there, too, and maybe someday we'll literally be knee deep in it, hope not). The citizens need to wake up and realize the scope of what's going on under their noses. It's too late for a lot of projects, like the twin towers (and there's a story to be told there involving inadequate planning and funding for emergency services to these large buildings), but we need to wake up and speak up before the serious development gets underway in the railyards. SRD is trying to get educated and have an impact, but the SNR has a built-in readership and a way to reach people. What about the shady connections between Rob Fong and the Maloofs? What about the loopholes in zoning restrictions that are being exploited right and left? I could go on. We don't need any more cover stories about dirt biking, we need someone to report on this stuff. Bites covers this a bit, too, and there is a brief mention of the arena in her/his column, and maybe they are working on some big stories right now, the News and Review is a rad local resource, don't get me wrong. I just think they need to hammer this stuff into peoples heads week after week, the same way the Bee and the local news does on a daily basis, but with facts, not propaganda.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Defending Becca where she probably doesn't need it:
Her column is an entertainment column. It had no more reason to report on the arena than KW's food column has. And she wasn't out suckin' any maloof dick either, she was at a baseball stadium, an already built one, if I understand correctly.

Frivilous? Yeah, so? I enjoy frivilous entertainment everyday. And when I'm unhappy with hard news coverage I don't get confused between the front of the mag and the back of the mag.

I think your criticisms are valid but I think that in this instance and others you make them hard not to view as personal attacks. If I ignore the sentence dragging Becca's innocent column into this, you're post raises some good points.

And yes, Becca's a friend of mine, but I became friends with her through her writing which I enjoyed before I'd ever met her. She's the arts editor and not the news editor for a reason.

PS: This should go without saying, but I'm not intending to flame or attack anyone here. I'm just giving my own (hopefully) constructive criticism.

Anonymous said...

Look! Over there! A puppy!

miller

Anonymous said...

I do find it interesting indeed, that in a week when a half-billion dollar tax giveaway gets ready to go down AND a half-dozen people (so far) have been found baked alive in the SRO hotels downtown, neither story even gets touched on in the SN&R.

Suttertown News, where are you when we need you?

Anonymous said...

Hate to be a dittohead, but I agree completely that, right or wrong, SN&R has to step up to the plate. Unless we get another daily, they have to pick up the slack and call the Bee on their crap. (I have a better chance of banging Khandi Alexander than Sac has of getting a new daily, BTW) I've read many columns by Ms Costello where she rolls out her "feminist" credentials and writes hard. I thought the mascot piece was entertaining, but in the past she has managed to almost alternate between fluffy and righteously indignant from week to week. Maybe some editor is trying the gender-appropriate equivalent of a "cock block" on her, but it would be cool to see her state her position. As for Cosmo, the eco terrorist story is predictably well-done in every respect. I don't think he ought to be distracted from his hard news stories. But, seeing as this arena thing is a classic "long con," you'd think it would be a story that he'd live for. He _is_ becoming an excellent crime reporter, so why not? As I said at the beginning, fair or not, SN&R needs to challenge the Bee. They probably need to be reminded that this is the reporting we want. Hell, even a mention in Griffith's column wouldn't be out of place.
Lastly, I didn't smell even a slight whiff of cattiness or pettiness in your critique. (And it is REALLY obvious when you're taking pot shots. I mean REALLY, REALLY obvious.)

Ed

beckler said...

Just substitute "lighthearted" for "frivolous" is you would like. That wasn't the point of what I wrote. However, with the crazy news week we just had, and with the NandR already having tons of content devoted to entertainment, I would question whether it's the time for such lightheartedness to get a full page. We don't want it to be like the local news, right, with little reporting on important local news and lots of time devoted to, oh I don't know, say Paul Joncich dressing up like Dinger for a day? That said, I was fascinated to read this week that Ask Joey thinks dreads are sexy.

I just read the whole issue at lunch, and Cosmo's article is really good. I do love the News and Review, maybe I'm asking it to do too much, but there's no one else that can do it. I'm freaked out about what's going to happen in Sac and no mainstream media outlets seem to share my trepidation.

beckler said...

hey xanne, if you're gonna bust my chops right back, you might want to read the post. specifically, the sentence where I say that bites mentions the arena. bites often has biting commentary. maybe it should get more space.

Anonymous said...

Like I said, I don't disagree with your critiques at all, and yes, I got that your mention of Becca's article was not the overall point of your post, I just thought it was misplaced, and distracting from your point.

Ask Joey would obviously be a ridiculous place to go off on the arena deal, I think Becca's column would also have been a stretch. Maybe it would fit Jackson's column for the fact that the arena would be used for music performances as well, but I don't think the weekly entertainment columns are where we should be looking.

If anything, I'd say the lead arts article, in this case an article on the marathon poetry reading, is the one that might have focused on the arena, or maybe the cover story or any of the other news stories, which you already suggested.

Miller shouldn't be promising puppies where there are no puppies. Tease!

beckler said...

I changed it to lighthearted because I wasn't aware until I looked at the dic def that "frivolous" is so derogatory. And I LOVE ask joey. I'm not just talking about the arena, it's the arena, and a million other projects around the city, and developers moving here from all over to try to make Sac into Portland, etc.

fft said...

don't assume that sn&r is anti-arena (anti-railyards, anti-r st., anti-corp., etc ...)

beckler said...

fft, can you elaborate on that?

Anonymous said...

The Jackson and Becca columns often feature their thoughts on various issues that affect their lives. And if Voisin can pretend to be a journalist, it might be time for me to buy my damn cat a smith corona and snappy green visor. The arena does relate to entertainment and taxing the consumer to benefit some wealthy dudes from Vegas impacts all of us, including columnists for "alternative" weekly papers. If there is a dearth of coverage on this, and (as hecka says) the other Big Plans, it is like ignoring the elephant in the room. Can't be done and *not* writing about it makes NandR come off all yellow-bellied.

Hopefully they'll do a cover feature nearer to election time, but the more uncovering of these shells game the better.

Ed

Anonymous said...

two things: There's no way that SNR could have written anything other than a tiny squib on the new deal because their print lead time wouldn't allow it. And, with their staff size and reportage $$, a well-researched story (a la Cosmo) is going ot take weeks.

Expecting them to be able to whip something out of their ass is unrealistic. let's see what they've got in a month.

beckler said...

I'm not just talking about the arena. I know they have a weekly deadline. I know they don't report on breaking news. I'm talking about ongoing developments. Are you saying that nothing can be improved in their coverage of anything having to do with the drastically and rapidly changing face of this city? I wrote this up and posted it, but the seed was planted at a dinner I shared with four other friends recently, in which one of us dug out some older urban-planning articles that Cosmo had written as examples of what we would like to see more of. We weren't sitting around bashing the N&R, we were wishing they could do more. Perhaps this is a futile wish and they are stretched to their limits, I don't know. I was throwing it out there.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Hey y'all
I tried to post earlier, and it didn't post for some reason. So I hope this one will.

I totally agree that the SN&R needs to do a better job on development, city hall, local politics and power, etc...It's definitely my biggest goal here, and I think the other two staff writers I work with agree.

Just a couple of things, which I hope won't sound like lame excuses.

First, yeah, when things happen like the heat deaths, after we go to print, there's not a lot we can do about it. Even if we wrote stories about them when they happened, it would be very old news by the time you read it in SN&R. There's a lot of stuff that is natural for daily journalism that doesn't work as well for us.
I'm hopeful that this new internet thing will help us put out more and more timely content. Soon...

There's something similar that happens with a story like the arena, or other really high profile story. When you see these daily updates in the Bee and all over the local broadcast outlets, it often doesn't make sense for us to weigh in with stories that will be old news by the time they hit the stands. I think if you look back at our coverage of other arena scams, like the K Street proposal, or the North Natomas land swap boondoggle, you'll see that we did pretty in-depth and skeptical reporting-stuff that you wouldn't have read anywhere else. We just waited until we had it, rather than trying to be there with all the other newspapers and TV stations...I think something similar will happen this time around.

All that said, I think you'll see the paper get better at this stuff. Feel free to keep kicking our asses until then...

-Cosmo

beckler said...

Thanks, you're our only hope!

Anonymous said...

I actually think the arena cover story (pro OR con, fft) would be better a week or two before the election. Maybe that is the plan.

gbomb

Anonymous said...

Smitty,

Don't forget Mary's Club, the titty bar with outstanding, outstanding, mexican food.

Apparently, Tim didn't feel the need to dignify your Lil' Joe's comment with a response. burn.....

-liv

Alice said...

cosmo,

is there any way you could put in a new section in the SN&R that deals with development issues? I know SRD would eventually like to be a continuing resource for breaking development news. but, it would be refreshing if something in print that received a wider distribution had a weekly column devoted to these issues. brand it what you will to catch people's attention. but i know i'd read it.

alice

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
beckler said...

I make a kind of "bwoooooop" noise when I delete comments. In my head.

Anonymous said...

"I actually think the arena cover story (pro OR con, fft) would be better a week or two before the election. Maybe that is the plan."

Naw. They should have a cover story run the thursday AFTER the election so either sixty+ percent or 30+ percent can be filled with an overwhelming, impotent rage.

Ed

PS: It won't really matter anyway, since, even if the arena measure does pass, it'll be tied up in court forever. Then there'll be the battle for superfund cash to clean the damn railyard, which ought to take another seven years. Ya gotta love our little 'burg.

Anonymous said...

If you see it as an attempt at fraud on a massive scale (I do) it is a perfect story for Cosmo "Jack Olsen" G. Cosmo should also buy the Puente place, since he's probably rolling in the clover these days.

Ed