The Ludington Daily News: The Fourth Branch of Local Government

[XLFD]

In America, when one refers to the 'fourth estate' it refers to the press in all of its forms and separates its duties to the people and their power to influence issues from the three branches of government:  the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary.  The three branches have a system of checks amongst themselves so that neither offsets the balance of power established by laws in our republic.

The press has a crucial role in the political process of observing and reporting the political processes of the other three so that the electorate can be informed and any corruption can be brought to light.  Although the Fourth Estate may often advocate and frame political issues with an editorial bias, their traditional role has been to be a watchdog working for the people to improve the other 'estates'.  

I frequently refer to our local paper as the 'City of Ludington Daily News' or COLDNews rather than its established moniker simply because it has gravitated from the noble goals of the fourth estate and has become more of an apologist for local officials and unpopular (or unlawful) public policy.  Two cases in point have come up this last week involving topics the Ludington Torch has covered, the first involves me acting under my Christian name seeking public information.  Read the following article discriminately before you continue reading this article:

You may not know enough about FOIA law to decide one way or the other, but I hope you noticed that the article only offers one side of the story, with City Attorney Wilson proffering a homily with some rather questionable assertions on their own right ('Before the closed session ended [the contractor] retrieved the [records used] related to the selection process, so that they would not be subject to FOIA, according to Wilson').  I was at the meeting this was discussed, talked to Wilson collegially for a few minutes after the meeting and had no problem talking with Cub Reporter Noah Hausmann the same way if he approached me or contacted me by phone or E-mail.  

Hausmann didn't, even though the two issues involved (the Open Meetings Act (OMA) and FOIA) are issues that the press should champion if there seems to be a possible violation.  Here, Hausmann used the OMA and FOIA three times each in the article as a point of defense for the City each of the six times.  Hausmann came at the beginning and ending of the January 10th meeting in question and was himself deflected for an answer to his simple inquiry at the end:

"Noah Hausmann asked if any council member wanted to speak about how the candidate selection meeting went. Interim City Manager Brock stated that there is an excellent pool of candidates for the city manager position."

Any journalist worth his salt would be disappointed that Brock couldn't have said that the council spent two hours and fifteen minutes reviewing and considering the personal information on ten applications when the facilitator had already said that only some had expressed confidentiality.  But any journalist worth his salt would have been interested in what the appealing party's perspective was and why he is rather certain the OMA and FOIA have been actively violated by the executive and legislative branch of the City of Ludington. 

The City never provided my appeal and supportive claims made to Hausmann for his article, nor did they do so in councilor packets, providing councilors (and the people) only with one side, the side alleged to be unlawfully withholding records that would prove they violated the OMA.  The newspaper article is designed to be both for public relations and propaganda, generated to poison the public's mind into thinking ill of those doing the COLDNews' supposed job of keeping their government held to account, while Hausmann puffs his chest as a functionary admired by his peers at city hall for his 'public service'.

Hausmann's boss, however, showed that the COLDNews has a soft spot for defending the indefensible acts of those who work in our local courts.  The LT has covered the following issue where a court officer lied to the local police repeatedly before admitting her illegal alien husband had been driving a vehicle that was involved in a crash where he disabled another vehicle and never stopped to report the accident. 

Our first foray into this story related another medium's treatment and offered additional analysis.  Our second effort looked at troubling court records of those involved and their sons, and our last report looked at further issues of unequal justice under the law.  Some of these were limited by the resources available.  The COLDNews only effort to introduce the topic, two days after our third article on it, has another purpose entirely for their article written by Managing Editor David Bossick:

It continues here.  The article's purpose seems to diminish the problems that we here have analyzed and discussed, and further problems that I have seen on receiving the police report since.  Bossick emphasizes the following as a good defense attorney might-- despite the facts noted in brackets that reduce his arguments to little more than 'public relations' for the local courts.  Chronologically:

"part-time clerk"  [hours of work is irrelevant, she is a sworn officer of the 79th District Court expected to always follow the law and higher standards of conduct than normal citizens]

"pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge in front of Lake County Magistrate Gregory Block."  [As noted here, Block hasn't the jurisdiction on the misdemeanor of 'filing a false police report'.]

"The plea was handled by the Lake County magistrate in order to avoid a conflict of interest since Saucedo-Narvaez works at 79th District Court."  [the Lake County magistrate is an officer of the 79th District Court, the conflict of interest remains.]

Following a 'defensive' account of the details of the police report, Editor Bossick relates...

"Both Saucedo-Narvaez and Narvaez's cases were heard in front of Block."  [Not according to court records supplied to the state by the 79th District Court peers of Rosemary or maybe even Rosemary herself, seen below]

""We use the same rules and guidelines (a judge would)," Block said." [a magistrate has very limited judicial power, almost exclusively over civil infractions with admissions of guilt.  The rules and guidelines differ greatly.]

And this is perhaps why Rosemary and her peers in the 79th District Court supply bogus court records to the State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) showing Judge Wadel as the judge of record in the clerk's resolved case and her husband's pending case, since otherwise the proceeding would be violative of court rules and state law. 

And why they decide to use Managing COLDNews Editor David Bossick as a tool to gloss over their deceitful and corrupt acts, since he won't be bothered to research these officials' statements and soften the impact of the crimes committed by the court officer and her husband.  Meanwhile, the COLDNews routinely reports with the cold-heartedness of a prosecutor on many other local citizens, not so well connected, who lie to police repeatedly, drive without licenses, and commit hit-and-run offenses as dire menaces to society.

So it seems clear that the fourth estate, at least regarding our local newspaper, is not working properly in keeping the local governments under proper surveillance; rather it is trying to protect them from sanctions for their illegal and unethical acts and double-crossing the people in the process.

[Willy]

Thanks X. Again you have shown the utter deceit   and  hypocritical reporting displayed by LDN for many years now which is the main reason I no longer  have any use for it's biassed and nonfactual news. What is the point of reading it when you know it's full of incomplete, misleading and just plain false facts. One amazing and telling peice of information that your posting proves just how biased and corrupt the LDN actually is. In Bossicks article he states in the last paragraph he wrote that the LDN contacted Saucedo-Narvaez but she declined to comment. Why is that a telling comment? How often has that statement been in an article written and printed about Mr. Rotta's deallings with City Hall and it's corruption. Never, that I have seen. So much for the LDN trying to get "the rest of the story".

[XLFD]

Even though it is filled with public relations, propaganda, fake news and other meaningless drivel, there is a value to reading the COLDNews if you use a critical eye.  It's for the same reason I suggest people that only look at the mainstream media outlets should take an occasional break and watch Fox News (and vice versa).  It can expand your perception of the issues covered (or left uncovered) by the secondary source, and allow you to develop critical thinking skills over issues.  

That's why I desire LT readers to read the COLDNews, especially concerning council meeting recaps and when they do one-sided articles effectively running against the two main laws that newspapers should instinctively defend.

[shinblind]

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”

― G. Orwell

So goes the local forth estate.  You never see local media question the city council or any government agency. 

They are as much the reason why Ludington continues to falter instead of grow, they are the cause the population decreases, they are the reason wages stagnate, they are the reason taxes continue to escalate. they are the reason poverty grows . 

They deliver only what one side wants delivered.

Tell me X, in the last decade how many times has the media asked for your side of the story? How many times did they request an interview with you? How many times did they as for a quote?

[XLFD]

Steve Begnoche approached me once after the City settled my federal lawsuit over the Workplace Safety Policy, the idiot wrote his news article summarizing it in the typical 'COLDNews way':  skewing the truth and fawning to his buds at city hall.  They only tried to interview me once, when I ran for councilor in 2011.  They only asked for a quote once, when I was at the courthouse when I ran for councilor in 2016 and lost.  

Over the last twenty years, I can't recall any COLDNews story that was critical of Ludington city government, I can only recall two that were critical of other governments:  a 2009 investigative report by Jenn Miller on the hidden, disparate compensations the county commissioners received, and a 2002(?) report by Rob Alway on how the Scottville commission appeared to violate the OMA.  Both of those reporters were cut unceremoniously when the newspaper changed hands and became hopelessly out of touch.

[Freedom Seeker]

If he is a fair editor he should include your point of view.  Telephone him and ask for fair journalism.

[Willy]

How the news media has involved themselves with the destruction of America, would be an interesting topic. Without their involvement in politics America would be a much better place. The news media is the glue that holds information and public opinion hostage to leftist causes and ideology which will eventually lead to America's collapse. Today, "Free Press" means free to undermine our Republic.

[stump]

As OUR President has said many times the Media IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. If the truth is not published , how is anyone suppose to know the real story. People read the news paper listen to the radio and watch TV to get the news.  It's been said ,it was on the internet so it must be true. So goes for the most overall  media. People viewing the council meetings on TV or reading about issues in the paper which say about something must be true. Most people don't have any reason to question the media unless they are personally involved in a situation of some sort.  If a person watches the TV news you can see how they twist the actual story to the left , not even to the middle of both sides.   Has anyone seen any ICE in town besides what mother nature supplied?

[Ania Queen]

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