by Tony Palmeri
April 15, 2001
(Oshkosh). At last Tuesday night's meeting of the Oshkosh Common Council, Councilor Melanie Bloechl faulted the local Oshkosh Northwestern for waiting until the day of the Council meeting to provide any coverage of the to-be-voted-on-that-night proposal to put a high rise office complex on the 100 block of North Main Street. The former Mayor voted against the 100 block proposal "on principle" because of the public's lack of knowledge of it--which she attributed to the Oshkosh Northwestern's too little and too late coverage. Bloechl surmised that the lack of coverage could be the result of city reporter Karl Ebert being on vacation, but she also said that the paper could have found a way to cover the story since they have time to write some "swingin' editorials."
Northwestern Executive Editor Stew Rieckman came out "swingin'" in his weekly column today, saying in part: "Normally I don't waste my time paying attention to her syntax-fractured ranting against The Northwestern. But this time the public deserves to see her for what she is - a hypocrite and petty demagogue."
The way Rieckman tells it, the responsibility for the lack of coverage of the 100-block proposal rests as much with the Council as it does with the newspaper. Two weeks before the Council meeting at which the proposal would be voted on, the councilors all pledged to take a "vow of silence", thus leaving it to the developer(s) to contact the press with news of the impending proposal. According to Rieckman, "If Bloechl truly wanted a public debate and full disclosure, as she claims, all she had to do was pick up the telephone and call. We certainly would have welcomed the tip and run with it. So much for principle."
Rieckman is right to be critical of Bloechl for taking a pledge of secrecy and then lamenting the lack of public disclosure about the proposal. He is also to be commended for taking some responsibility for the debacle: "Should the Northwestern have had the story well before the meeting? Yes. That's our job and I wish we had done it better. We certainly are not above criticism on that count."
But Rieckman's limited apology raises more questions than it answers. For one thing, he acknowledges in his editorial that the Common Council agenda was available on the Friday before the meeting at 4 p.m. Imagine being the Executive Editor of the newspaper and seeing this resolution on the agenda:
BE IT RESOLVED by the Common Council of the City of Oshkosh that the proper City officials are hereby authorized and directed to enter into a Developer Agreement with Professional Realty and Development Corporation for the 100 Block Redevelopment Project, with substantially the same terms as attached hereto, and to carry out all actions necessary to implement the City's obligations under the Developer Agreement.
Let's take Mr. Rieckman's word that the Northwestern was not aware of this resolution until Friday at 4 p.m. That still would have left Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to cover the story.
Why did the Northwestern wait until Tuesday--the day of the Council's vote--to cover the proposal? The answer is in the Northwestern's editorial on that Tuesday: "While we are sure the Common Council will want to peer into all of the nooks and crannies of the proposals, which is prudent, it cannot afford protracted, frivolous deliberations." There you have it. To have reported the story on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday might have resulted in "protracted, frivolous deliberations."
The Northwestern--like the Common Council--knew full well that there was no way that the developers were going to reveal the contents of the 100 block proposal in the two weeks before the council vote. With an "office space available" sign directly across the street from the site of the proposed structure, and with the city once again engaging in questionable use of Tax Incremental District (TIF) financing, there would have been some deliberations indeed. Only the developers and their supporters on the council (and in the press?) would have considered such deliberations "protracted and frivolous."
While I believe that Rieckman's criticism of Bloechl is in part justified, I also believe it is time for the Northwestern to take a serious look at the Gannett ethical standards for newsrooms that the paper supposedly operates by. The "exercising fair play" standard commits the paper to treating people with "dignity, respect and compassion." I'm not sure that calling an individual--even an elected official with an ornery reputation like Bloechl--a petty demagogue, hypocrite, and fraud meets that standard.
More important, Gannett's "maintaining independence" standard says that the paper "will maintain an impartial, arm's length relationship with anyone seeking to influence the news." Clearly, the Common Council and the 100 block developers tried to keep the details of the proposal out of the news as long as possible to prevent any meaningful public debate. The Northwestern enabled this effort by failing to run any stories on the 100 block in the days leading up to the council vote, and by characterizing deliberations on the issue as potentially "protracted and frivolous." Both the Common Council and the developers thus were able to influence the news in a way that forces us to question whether the paper willingly allowed itself to be manipulated.
The city of Oshkosh is now stuck with a multi-million dollar project on the 100 block that is, as councilor Kevin McGee suggested several weeks ago, an example of a "Koeller St. solution to downtown." In different ways, Bloechl and Rieckman are equally responsible for this state of affairs.
Mrs. Bloechl is scheduled to be a guest on the April 18th edition of Commentary. We look forward to questioning her about her role in the 100 block issue and her feelings about Rieckman's editorial.