My recent clash with City Hall News did get me thinking.
First, I owe thanks to a couple of readers, the first being the one who posted this parody of CHN on my City Hall News thread:
Defining losers: "Gatemouth's idea for a good candidate got beaten by forces that he alone correctly identified when he was coming up with a solid strategic pick. But Gatemouth underestimated the strength of those forces (at a time where no one else but GOP flacks would have been within an order of magnitude as accurate as his fears), while the rest of us were blindly unaware of the forces at work the whole time until the last five days of the election. Therefore he lost."
Another great comment came in response to an anonymous crank (almost surely Gary Tilzer) who has been posting now for over a week demanding that I owe apologize for suggesting Weprin would be a good candidate:
YO Fatty: Even if Gatey was enthusiastic about Weprin at the time of selection he doesn't need to apologize, especially to you. Weprin was superior to many other people mentioned at the time (like Noach Dear), but Gatey was incessantly consistent in calling for an actual campaign to be run by Weprin (and the national Democrats) to hold the seat.
Further, it is likely ANY Queens Dem choice would have faced the same branding effort as an insider, the same Orthodox opposition, the same Vito disappearing act, the same "send Obama a message" environment, and the same/usual self-appointed "progressive" backstabbery/anomie.
In days of yore, Boss said, "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." As Gatemouth and Colin said, repeatedly, this race needed to be different, it wasn't, so there you have it.
Nonetheless, I wonder where the hostility at CHN comes from. I’ve always been cooperative with their reporters, and have often come to their parties and deigned to eat their free food.
Further, I’ve frequently linked their stuff with profuse compliments about the quality of their reporting, where such compliments have been merited.
I’ve even stuck my neck out to defend their one-time editor from character assassination (and then rewrote the defense at his personal request).
In looking back at where I might have caused CHN such offense to be cited for having “anonymously spewed hyper-technical invective at local politicians and the press,”
I came upon only four things (though I do not discount the possibility there may have been a few more).
In July 2010, I took issue with a CHN piece about Assemblywoman Barbara Clark having a dead candidate for County Committee on her petitions.
My point was admittedly hyper-technical, but when one tries to slur someone else’s name on a hypertechnicality (and gets it wrong), one must be prepared for such a critique.
However, wanting to keep things friendly, I first tried to enlighten them about their error, hoping they’d correct it themselves. There wasn’t even an email response.
I only posted this after they failed to post a correction:
I was going to let this go, but even after giving them the opportunity to run a correction, City Hall News has demurred and left the story unchanged.
It would be nice if City Hall News could distinguish between a State Committee member–a significant party official whose turf runs the entirety of an Assembly District, and a County Committee member, a very minor position which covers one Election District (e.g., usually one voting machine).
If Barbara Clark circulated a petition with dead State Committee candidates, it would be a devastating indictment of her being out of touch.
County Committee is more likely some club president not doing their homework. Who cares? Assembly Member Barbara Clark Petitions With The Dead In Southeast Queens www.cityhallnews.com
On 12/14/10, I broke the story that it was Merry Madame Kristen Davis, rather than Chuck Barron who ran last for Governor. On 12/17, CHN used the info they almost certainly had gotten from me, without even a hat tip (they’ve never given me a link–even when they dissed me, they ran a general link to Room 8, rather than linking the offending columns, one of which didn’t exist).
Anyway, here was my response:
Loser: City Hall News.
Why: Item #2 on the losers list, was inspired by a discovery first made by this Department.
How about a hat tip, Edward Isaac? Winners & Losers, Dec. 17 Edition www.cityhallnews.com
In January 2011, I noted City Hall News' take on Bloomie’s fall from grace was analytically similar to mine, but this was not to accuse them of plagiarism, but to lend my own analysis some extra legitimacy by showing that others shared it:
City Hall News channels Gatemouth. After three months of hard knocks, Bloomberg plots his comeback www.cityhallnews.com
But the killer was probably my inclusion of CHN in one on my compendiums of idiotic reporting about the 54th AD vacancy.
CHN was not the only target, or even the primary one (the Observer was at the time the worst offender), but such columns require multiple examples to make their point, so I wrote:
At last, someone writes an article about the 54th AD special election that answers the crucial question of who controls the district's Democratic County Committee.
And as usual, Gatemouth is right: The Dilan Family does (the Dilans are not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lopez Empire, but Vito is the majority shareholder).
Sadly, the article has a MAJOR FLAW: the County Committee does not fill the vacancy; it merely determines who gets the Democratic nomination, one is still allowed to run on another party's line or petition.
And though winning on another line is difficult, one can do so: just ask Melinda Katz, Oliver Koppell or Eliot Engel, all of whom began their careers by doing just that.
It can even happen in minority neighborhood. Robert Garcia won a special election for Congress on the Republican and Liberal lines, promising to serve as a Democrat.
Also, the County Committee is called the County Committee. There is no such thing as "The Assembly Vacancy Committee," while a "Committee on Vacancies" is something else entirely, and not relevant to this situation.
Further, contrary to the article, Michael Miller was not appointed to the Assembly in 2009 by a "vacancy committee;" he was victorious against a Republican in a contested election. Brooklyn Assembly Race Narrows To Dilan Inner Circle www.cityhallnews.com
Sorry, but it is not being hypertechnical to inform the public that an actual election will be taking place.
I suppose I could have sent the correction before I went to press, but chastened by the Barbara Clark incident, and tempted by the fact that more examples better proved my point about the idiocy of much reporting about local politics, I did not, though I was courteous enough to send the editor a head’s up, which began with a partial compliment:
Subject: your article is important, but has major problems
Reporter Chris Bragg was not pleased:
Chris Bragg: You can always ask for a correction gate instead. Guess thats not your style. On the train will take a look later.
GATE: sorry, but my major mantra in covering this race is that it is being misreported everywhere. that being said, your article, inaccuracies and all, is the best so far (mine excepted)–and I think I conveyed that–you are the only one who got the fundamental fact–the Observer somehow thought that darryl and edolphus would control succession
BRAGG: Fair enough. Definitely am aware other candidates can run w out dem line. But chances of that mattering in this part of brooklyn are very remote considering strength of party there and dilans
GATE: 1) true enough, but that is very much not what you said–you used the word appointment 2) it can be done–the Towns family is not without facts on the ground in that AD and there are issues–it might be a long shot, but Bob Garcia went to Congress on a similar longshot in a similar area
Bragg then attempted to fix his piece, with only partial success, forcing me to follow up:
Duly chastened, the author of the piece eviscerated above then attempted to correct the errors I had pointed out, with limited success.
1) While the revised piece now notes that the County Committee (now correctly called that in at least one place) will only chose the Democratic nominee, and that candidates may also petition to get on the ballot, it fails to note that candidates, including enrolled Democrats, may also forgo petitioning by seeking other party lines like the GOP and WFP.
2) The author still uses the terms "Assembly Vacancy Committee" and "vacancy committee" repeatedly. This seems to be a confusion of apples and oranges.
Candidates who circulate petitions (and party committees which have nominated a candidate) can designate vacancy committees to allow a substitution of a candidate for a limited period before an election. Once that period passes, the Committee on Vacancies no longer exists. A County Committee, a body which (ostensibly) has other legal purposes than nominating candidates, is an entirely different beast. One who knows what they are talking about does not call one by another's name.
That all being said, the article I am complaining about is the best thing written on the race by an author other than myself or Colin Campbell.
One might note further that a WFP candidate not only made the race, but caused the Kings County Democratic Leader a big panic attack, which he eventually responded to by pulling crucial resources from a competitive Congressional race.
At any rate, City Hall News tried to make lemons out of lemonade and attempted to go to town on my backhanded compliment, leading to one more post on the matter:
City Hall News tweeted: "Gatemouth calls our piece on Darryl Towns' Assembly seat "best thing written" on the race, and then eviscerates it http://ow.ly/45Ifu"
What I actually said was that it was the best thing written on the race that was not authored by Gatemouth or Colin Campbell. And even that is no longer true. And, even if it was, it's faint praise at best.
Proving, it is not only hard cases, but incomplete quotations, which make for bad reporting.
City Hall News proves this week that they believe revenge is a dish best taken cold.
CORRECTION: A friend writes to note I forgot one; he notes that, when CHN published an article implying that the 9th contained few Irish votes, I shot back:
Does anyone in the press know where this district is or who lives here?
Breezy Point, Broad Channel, (both of which will also be having an Assembly race) Ridgewood, Gerritsen Beach, Marine Park.
Significant irish population. Especially significant if you're a Republican.
Why do you think all the windbags from Bay Ridge want to run here?
Incidentally, an Irish guy won.