Reading the Charlotte Sun Newspaper

This is the news; the bracketed info shows where the fact first appeared in today’s front page story.

Ramar Group [graf 6], home-based in an unreported city, sent its preliminary proposal for a 4,000-acre housing development in DeSoto County [graf 2] to Central Florida Regional Planning Council [graf 6] Monday. The action begins a review process that [the developers said] will probably take between two and three years [graf 17]. The Ramar proposal will require amending the local comprehensive land plan [graf 15] which has designated the boondocks [yes, he wrote that in graf 2] of eastern DeSoto County for an unreported other use.The plan must undergo evaluation by several state agencies [graf 12], including Swiftmud [first reference and nickname used to vilify Southwest Florida Water Management District].

The published lead: Government wheels started turning Monday for a proposed local development that could change DeSoto, and experts say, Florida’s Heartland; however, for the time being the Villages of Valencia Lakes is just a dream with a million-dollar price tag.

Skipping to the unattributed 5th graf, with any substantial news still held in abeyance, our journalist cranks up his editorial comments and mind-reading skills.

Don’t think in terms of a new neighborhood – think in terms of the pyramids of Giza, the Colosseum, Machu Pichu. Enterprising developers hope Valencia Lakes will be a landmark community – not only because of its size, which is massive enough to include two square miles of open space, but because they hope it will serve as an example for other developers in the area and set the bar for communities to come.*

Please. No, the developers don’t care to “serve as an example.” They hope to sell a lot of houses and make a lot of money. Worse, this reporter’s interjection of the last National Geographic special he watched turns him into a flack for the man, not a skeptical watchdog in the community.

As Flack for the Man, he has no motivation to remind readers of four failed, grass-growing-in-the-roadways developments closer to home. As Flack for the Man, he has no motivation to tell readers whose land was bought for the development. As Flack for the Man he has no reason to describe any of the development’s potential regional impacts (which gives the preliminary proposal its official name), or how the developer plans to finance the operation. Who are the backers and partners? Have they done other developments of this size? Even the crucial “why” is missing from the story. The Flack for the Man gives the Man’s vague idea in the third-from-last graf that inland communities are more affordable than coastal developments — but why DeSoto? Why dig lakes on Four Mile Grade? Does the developer expect there will be jobs for 30,000 households 40 miles from, well, nowhere?

And what’s with this “experts” thing? The only people quoted are the developer, a regional planning council member, and a county administrator. More Flacking for the Man/Men.

*Here’s the “example” and the “bar” set by the examples:

The development will be an imperial monument, built with blood money by dictator-developers to glorify their social status and perpetuate power, reflected by accommodations arranged according to a rigidly structured social-hierarchy, with slaves at the bottom.

After all, the Pyramids at Giza are tombs built by slaves for Egyptian pharaohs. The Colosseum is a symbol of Imperial Rome paid for largely by Vespasian’s spoils following his victory over the Jews in 70 A.D. Some 9,000 animals were killed in its inauguration; it is perhaps most famously the place where Christians were supposed to have been fed to lions, although the historical accuracy of this widely held notion is debated. Seating arrangements for spectators “reflected the rigidly stratified nature of Roman society,” Encyclopedia Britannica says. And Peru’s Machu Piccu is a mountain top Imperial-era (15th Century in the Western Calendar) Incan fortress and prison erected by a culture that practiced human sacrifice.

This is the news; the bracketed info shows where the fact first appeared in today’s front page story.

Ramar Group [graf 6], home-based in an unreported city, sent its preliminary proposal for a 4,000-acre housing development in DeSoto County [graf 2] to Central Florida Regional Planning Council [graf 6] Monday. The action begins a review process that [the developers said] will probably take between two and three years [graf 17]. The Ramar proposal will require amending the local comprehensive land plan [graf 15] which has designated the boondocks [yes, he wrote that in graf 2] of eastern DeSoto County for an unreported other use.The plan must undergo evaluation by several state agencies [graf 12], including Swiftmud [first reference and nickname used to vilify Southwest Florida Water Management District].

The published lead: Government wheels started turning Monday for a proposed local development that could change DeSoto, and experts say, Florida’s Heartland; however, for the time being the Villages of Valencia Lakes is just a dream with a million-dollar price tag.

Skipping to the unattributed 5th graf, with any substantial news still held in abeyance, our journalist cranks up his editorial comments and mind-reading skills.

Don’t think in terms of a new neighborhood – think in terms of the pyramids of Giza, the Colosseum, Machu Pichu. Enterprising developers hope Valencia Lakes will be a landmark community – not only because of its size, which is massive enough to include two square miles of open space, but because they hope it will serve as an example for other developers in the area and set the bar for communities to come.*

Please. No, the developers don’t care to “serve as an example.” They hope to sell a lot of houses and make a lot of money. Worse, this reporter’s interjection of the last National Geographic special he watched turns him into a flack for the man, not a skeptical watchdog in the community.

As Flack for the Man, he has no motivation to remind readers of four failed, grass-growing-in-the-roadways developments closer to home. As Flack for the Man, he has no motivation to tell readers whose land was bought for the development. As Flack for the Man he has no reason to describe any of the development’s potential regional impacts (which gives the preliminary proposal its official name), or how the developer plans to finance the operation. Who are the backers and partners? Have they done other developments of this size? Even the crucial “why” is missing from the story. The Flack for the Man gives the Man’s vague idea in the third-from-last graf that inland communities are more affordable than coastal developments — but why DeSoto? Why dig lakes on Four Mile Grade? Does the developer expect there will be jobs for 30,000 households 40 miles from, well, nowhere?

And what’s with this “experts” thing? The only people quoted are the developer, a regional planning council member, and a county administrator. More Flacking for the Man/Men.

*Here’s the “example” and the “bar” set by the examples:

The development will be an imperial monument, built with blood money by dictator-developers to glorify their social status and perpetuate power, reflected by accommodations arranged according to a rigidly structured social-hierarchy, with slaves at the bottom.

After all, the Pyramids at Giza are tombs built by slaves for Egyptian pharaohs. The Colosseum is a symbol of Imperial Rome paid for largely by Vespasian’s spoils following his victory over the Jews in 70 A.D. Some 9,000 animals were killed in its inauguration; it is perhaps most famously the place where Christians were supposed to have been fed to lions, although the historical accuracy of this widely held notion is debated. Seating arrangements for spectators “reflected the rigidly stratified nature of Roman society,” Encyclopedia Britannica says. And Peru’s Machu Piccu is a mountain top Imperial-era (15th Century in the Western Calendar) Incan fortress and prison erected by a culture that practiced human sacrifice.

Readers expect legitimate newspapers (as opposed, for example, to penny advertisers and tabloids) to be reasonably objective. Readers also know pure objectivity is probably impossible; the very act of selecting one story for front page display and another for a three-paragraph brief entails judgment and selectivity. Nonetheless, attempting the high standard of objectivity is one of journalism’s canons. Among the first skills reporters are expected to master and use are techniques to help them present news relatively free of personal bias or favoritism for one advertiser or source.

Sun readers this week have been treated to several items that missed this mark – widely.

The most recent is a Sunday story written by Harold Lanni who writes about new accreditation standards medical-equipment suppliers must meet to remain Medicare suppliers. The problem is, he’s an employee of the company featured in the article, and his specific title is disclosed as “accreditation manager.”

On one level, I thank editors for disclosing the writer’s affiliation. Disclosure helps me understand why the one-source story is a slick, superficial and glowing report of one firm’s path to accreditation.

Despite the disclosure, the story remains a sorry piece of reportage. Lanni does not help Sun readers understand equipment-billing fraud has plagued Medicare to the tune of $2 billion a year, by some estimates. He fails to mention south Florida is the specific target of several federal investigations and pilot programs to detect and root out fraudulent medical-equipment operations. He fails to report that more than three dozen medical equipment providers serve Sun’s readership area and fails to report if any, besides his own firm, are accredited.

None of this is his fault; he’s paid to make his employer look good. The editor, however, is not an employee of the firm; she does know better, and she chose to sell our her credibility – and that of the entire Sun-Herald Newspaper company.

The second instance of being too chummy with a source comes from the business pages. Editor Bob Fliss wrote last Tuesday:

It’s always a good feeling when one of your ideas comes to fruition — never mind the fact that a whole bunch of other folks probably had the same idea.

After all, didn’t our beloved Ronald Reagan once remark that people could accomplish amazing things once they ceased fussing about who got the credit?

Team Punta Gorda will be holding its third annual meeting Nov. 8, and their keynote speaker is a businessman who could play a big role in shaping the future of this community.

Tom Wilder is a principal in the Boston-based firm The Wilder Companies, which is planning to develop a 1.2 million-square-foot retail center on Jones Loop Road, just west of the new Wal-Mart Supercenter. The tract covers about 200 acres, and Wilder removed any doubt that he was serious about the project by buying the land late last year — prior to getting all his approvals from Charlotte County.

I don’t mind admitting that every time I’ve interviewed
Wilder by phone, I’ve gently prodded him about hooking up with Team Punta Gorda for a public meeting. I’m glad to see my friends at TPG have had the same notion.

Chummy, chummy, chummy. Every reader should be asking Fliss some pointed questions: How objective will you be when it comes time to report negative news about a man who did you the favor of “hooking up” with your civic group? How fair is it of you to appear to disclaim credit for prompting the nice developer to meet your friends in one paragraph but left-handedly claim it in the next? How much influence did your position as an editor and reporter have in persuading the developer to meet your lunch bunch? How much objective reporting can readers expect if tomorrow’s news happens to involve your friends at TPG?

I know we’re in a small town, where everyone knows everyone. But, this is a business column; Fliss is an editor (and not an inexperienced one) who has, by virtue of his position and experience, a duty to deliver something more than chummy takes on his lunch buddies.

What’s Political Party Got To Do With It?
ATLANTA (AP) – [...] With water levels at all-time lows, Georgia has taken more steps to conserve water in recent weeks. Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered public water utilities this week in north Georgia to cut water withdrawals by 10 percent [...]. The Republican also declared a state of emergency in north Georgia and asked the federal government to release less water downstream.

Perdue acted in his capacity as governor, not as a party member.

Editors: Please Save Reporters From Themselves

A story about tourism taxes says the bed-tax is charged “anywhere people visiting Florida stay for six months or less a year.”[sic]

Wrong. The story and a nearby cutline report 10 Florida counties, including two local ones, don’t charge bed taxes, no matter how short the stay. Thus, the tax is not, being charged “anywhere people” visit. Also wrong, because the badly garbled last clause should read “stay for less than six months.”

Carefree gulf beaches [...]

Since when do beaches have cares that some can become carefree?

The cutline says:

Right: All but 10 Florida counties tax accommodations – condos, motels and hotel rooms and short-term rentals – to fund special projects and tourism development.

The unnamed woman is neither a condo, motel, hotel room, nor a short-term rental, that we know of.

“The Florida Legislative Committee on Intergovernmental Relations says DeSoto had some $138,133 in unrealized tourist tax revenue. [...] At 2 percent, Rawls’ referendum could generate around $98,000 in revenue for DeSoto.”

The reporter fails to explain the period the legislative committee report applies to, creating a disjunction with the next sentence about the county.

Rawls want tourist tax dollars in DeSoto to [...] Provide a marketable brand name that fits with DeSoto’s personality, while meshing DeSoto’s hitherto “clustered” tourism efforts with county funding.

What is a clustered tourism effort and how can something so abstract be meshed with county funding? The reporter is mouthing a source’s jargon without much skepticism, analysis, or willingness to ask what the source means.

There are genuine fears that without representation in the right regional arenas that typically exclude areas with low populations, transportation plans and state infrastructure dollars could bypass leaders in Hardee, DeSoto, and
Highland counties if they don’t speak up.

Where are the fears described as there? Why are they genuine? What’s the right arena? Why would leaders be bypassed? Speaking up isn’t the criteria for participation; having enough people to meet population-based entry requirements is.

What’s Political Party Got To Do With It?
ATLANTA (AP) – [...] With water levels at all-time lows, Georgia has taken more steps to conserve water in recent weeks. Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered public water utilities this week in north Georgia to cut water withdrawals by 10 percent [...]. The Republican also declared a state of emergency in north Georgia and asked the federal government to release less water downstream.

Perdue acted in his capacity as governor, not as a party member.

Editors: Please Save Reporters From Themselves

A story about tourism taxes says the bed-tax is charged “anywhere people visiting Florida stay for six months or less a year.”[sic]

Wrong. The story and a nearby cutline report 10 Florida counties, including two local ones, don’t charge bed taxes, no matter how short the stay. Thus, the tax is not, being charged “anywhere people” visit. Also wrong, because the badly garbled last clause should read “stay for less than six months.”

Carefree gulf beaches [...]

Since when do beaches have cares that some can become carefree?

The cutline says:

Right: All but 10 Florida counties tax accommodations – condos, motels and hotel rooms and short-term rentals – to fund special projects and tourism development.

The unnamed woman is neither a condo, motel, hotel room, nor a short-term rental, that we know of.

“The Florida Legislative Committee on Intergovernmental Relations says DeSoto had some $138,133 in unrealized tourist tax revenue. [...] At 2 percent, Rawls’ referendum could generate around $98,000 in revenue for DeSoto.”

The reporter fails to explain the period the legislative committee report applies to, creating a disjunction with the next sentence about the county.

Rawls want tourist tax dollars in DeSoto to [...] Provide a marketable brand name that fits with DeSoto’s personality, while meshing DeSoto’s hitherto “clustered” tourism efforts with county funding.

What is a clustered tourism effort and how can something so abstract be meshed with county funding? The reporter is mouthing a source’s jargon without much skepticism, analysis, or willingness to ask what the source means.

There are genuine fears that without representation in the right regional arenas that typically exclude areas with low populations, transportation plans and state infrastructure dollars could bypass leaders in Hardee, DeSoto, and
Highland counties if they don’t speak up.

Where are the fears described as there? Why are they genuine? What’s the right arena? Why would leaders be bypassed? Speaking up isn’t the criteria for participation; having enough people to meet population-based entry requirements is.

Every reporter in the state who covers local government should be acquainted with the basics of comprehensive planning.

It’s part of the job description, on a par with understanding the electoral process, knowing the fundamentals of law making, learning the ins and outs of property assessment, taxation, school funding and “Sunshine State Standards” (Florida school curricula and our annual winter FCAT debates), and a host of other core topics huddled under the umbrella of civics and political science.

Comprehensive planning is a subject a journalist can’t write intelligently about without at least a little background knowledge, which is what a DeSoto Sun reporter tried to do this week. That the reporter had to cover a meeting he knew nothing about is painfully clear on this morning’s front page. This particular young man has been in town a couple of years now, and the comp plan has been in development for all of that time. He should be able to describe it in terms my mother would understand.

Back in August, local commissioners sent the local comp plan to the state, knowing it had shortcomings. Basically, they said, “Let’s throw it on the wall and see what sticks.” The modus operandi was let the state tell them what’s wrong and revise accordingly. Which is exactly what happened. An alert citizenry might question if this is the best way to create policies and draw maps that will affect local homesteads and businesses and ranches for decades to come.

But let’s overlook the reporter’s sorry grasp of the subject. There’s no excuse for a badly constructed story that leads with obscure administrative processes, buries the news somewhere down in the 15th graf, and is anchored with self-serving quotes from friends in local government. If the document on which his story is based was released Wednesday, this reporter had two days, at least, to make calls, get an education and sort things out. He didn’t use his time wisely.

That’s the editorial. Here are the facts:

Headline: A comprehensive setback

Comp plan scrutinized by state expert; found not “in compliance” with Florida law.

By Jon Sica, DeSoto News Editor

ARCADIA — The Florida Department of Community Affairs has reviewed DeSoto County’s Comprehensive plan and found it wanting.

Department leaders issued a statement of intent to find the comp plan “not in compliance” Wednesday because it is inconsistent with state law, the state’s comp plan, and Florida’s administrative code. The department’s rejection letter outlines 10 reasons why the comp plan failed to comply. Now, county leaders are hoping to fix the comp plan for the state’s satisfaction and garner its approval as soon as possible — preferably before county leaders would have to meet department experts during a judicial hearing to decide its fate

Readers are two paragraphs and four and a half sentences into the story with no clue about why the state rejected the local comprehensive plan. Readers learn the rejection letter includes 10 reasons, but the reporter gives no hint about what even one of them might be.

A reporter who has followed local comprehensive planning would be able to sort through the points and pick one or two of the most significant, giving readers a reason to read the story.

Based on what I’ve read in the papers (ahem), bouncing a plan for this largely agricultural, sparsely populated based on “urban sprawl” seems an eminently newsworthy place to begin. Another the bullet point mentions central water and sewage — subjects that are always red flags waving a dollar sign. Either of these important issues might have given readers an entrance into the story and the reporter a basis for organizing the rest of the information.

The reporter’s time reference in the second graf to Wednesday is confusing. Was there an unscheduled commission meeting that day? If this is the date the state sent the letter, let’s be clear that the commission hasn’t held a meeting and the news story is based on a letter that’s a courtesy, a heads-up, from the state to the locality.

The language of the bureaucracy needs to be translated. A well-informed and well-read reporter knows a letter about “inconsistencies with state law, the state’s comprehensive plan and Florida’s administrative code” is largely legalese. What, pray tell, readers want to know, does the mumbo-jumbo mean?

Instead of answering any of the “inverted pyramid” items such as who, what, when, where or why, the reporter abandons today’s news and uses the third graf to retreat to the safety of history:

The comp plan was approved by the DeSoto County Commission Aug. 28 after a two-hour long public hearing on the subject. The goal of the plan is to keep local growth and development on the county’s terms; balancing the demands of population growth, development, local ecosystems and economic expansion — all within the boundaries of myriad state laws and regulations.

Let’s ignore the passive voice, punctuation problems, abstractions, and the writer’s final cop out phrase, “myriad state laws and regulations.” All in all, this paragraph tells readers the reporter is in over his head. For one thing, the goal of the state-mandated comprehensive plan is not “to keep local growth and development on the county’s terms.” If anything, it’s quite the opposite — it keeps localities from going whichever way they choose at the expense of the region and resources. So perhaps, we hope, he’ll go to an expert, the county’s own land planner, for an explanation. Instead, readers get this:

“(Department of Community Affairs) staff has complimented this plan, which is kind of strange to hear,” said Jason Green, planning manager. “But there are portions of it they are very happy with and, overall, they think it’s a good plan.”

Green said the department’s staff even went so far as to
tell him they may use DeSoto’s environmental polices as an example for other counties.

Okay, we live in a small town, and Reporter Jon may well belong to the same gym as Land Planner Jason. I’ll let him have his softball quote, but I do expect some substance soon.

Most of the department’s objections in the letter of intent — which was authored by Mike McDaniel, chief of the department’s office of comprehensive planning — centered around the comp plan’s density and zoning clauses

Now readers learn who “authored” the letter of intent, as if that’s truly important at this particular point. Unfortunately for this reporter, the letter likely “authored” by an urban planner or two within the DCS and drafted for the chief’s signature.

Other readers might wonder what’s the intent of a “letter of intent,” and if that’s something different than the letter of rejection. But, they are not going to be informed.

Readers learn something’s wrong with “density and zoning clauses.” Do the clauses have poor punctuation and spelling? I doubt it. I suspect that there’s something wrong with the county’s policies about density and zoning. Maybe the local land planner can explain:

“There are two issues: too low of density and too many units,” Green said.” (The department) is worried about form of development and how it’s going to occur — to make sure you have enough open space and preservation of valuable resources, and stuff — that’s what we have to address.”

Form of development – what exactly is that? Open space – is that pastures or parks? “Preservation of valuable resources” is good in a circular-reasoning universe, but is there gold in them thar hills or does this mean the Peace River, Horse Creek and Joshua Creek? Is the reporter trying to tell us the comp plan was thrown out because it fails to protect the watershed?Readers deserve to to know that. About “…and stuff,” I have no comment.

Our reporter has already reported there are 10 points of failure, but now the land planner says there are just two issues. If I think I get what’s going on, it’s not because the reporter has made anything clear.

Urban sprawl, need, concurrency and Development of Regional Impact standards, commonly called DRIs — the state picked apart the comp plan’s policies about these issues.

Is this sentence part of the local land planner’s statement? It sounds as if it’s a paraphrase, and if so, it needs to be attributed to him.

More importantly, an alert reporter would know to ask the planner to explain to readers how a sparsely populated region suffers from “urban sprawl.” A reporter who understands the subject would locate and share the technical meaning of “need.” I happen to know what the next item, “concurrency,” is. But it’s also a technical term most readers would appreciate a snappy definition of from a knowledgeable reporter or the land planner. Just saying that “Development of Regional Impact” is phrase commonly known by its initials does not explain it.

And, what exactly are the local policies the reporter — or land planner (at this point, readers don’t know exactly who) — mentions that got picked apart?

“It comes down to an interpretation of what you’re trying to accomplish,”Green said.”Everybody has their own opinion. I think overall it’s a good plan — we’re proud of it — we have to figure out exactly what the department wants. That’s the million-dollar question.”

Another defensive, self-serving quote from the (I think) gym buddy, a quote that no self-respecting reporter would included in a first-day news story.

To bring the comp plan into compliance, the department said county leaders must do the following:

Finally, readers get to see the points the DCA says are problems. Unfortunately, not one item defined, explained, ranked in terms of cost, importance, substance, or any other factor that might help readers understand what the state is asking local government to do.

* Revise the five-year schedule of capital improvement to include road deficiencies on U.S. 17 and State Road 70, noting the funding sources for each. If this cannot happen, the department said the county must lower land-use assignments to reduce the impact on those highways.
* Revise the capital improvement and future land-use policies to require the roads and parks serving permitted developments be completed or under construction within three years of board approval.
* Revise future land-use policies, which allocate land to residential and nonresidential land uses, to accommodate the projected population of DeSoto in the year 2030, by reducing the amount of residential and nonresidential land shown on the future land-use map to reflect the needs of projected population.
* Adopt “innovative and flexible techniques and strategies” that will reduce urban sprawl by centralizing developments in hamlets, villages and towns.
* Clarify public land and institution polices that define the types and uses allowed in this category.
* Revise mixed-use community policies to make the number of nonresidential uses allowed proportional to the size of the residential community.
* Revise mixed-use standards to make it less difficult to interpret and implement the comp plan’s standards.
* Revise policies 1.6.10 and 1.6.15 to require the same
conditions for connection to central water and sewer.
* Revise DRI standards to “not only define the density and intensity of uses, but the proportion of the mix of uses allowed.” Ideally, it should ensure “an appropriate and proportional balance between the residential and non-residential use.”
* Create an industrial land-use category in the comp plan and “assign that category to lands in the urban area that are determined to be suitable for industrial development, or restrict industrial uses to suitable urban land-use categories.”

Interim County Administrator Bart Arrington said most of these changes can be easily made on paper, but the rest may take some time.

Uhm, okay, which ones will “take some time?” Maybe those are newsworthy, lead-graf items to bring to the top. Did the reporter ask the administrator which ones might “take some time” and what that time might be, or what made some things more difficult than others? If he did, he doesn’t report it.

“I believe these things are fixable,” Arrington said. “I don’t think it’s an impossible task; we can get these things settled in the time we need so we don’t have to go to the hearing.”

The hearing was mentioned the very beginning and now it’s time to explain it a bit more. (I’m skipping the self-serving, save-my-job quote.) A few readers may know that if a deficient plan isn’t remedied, the state can impose fines, withhold funding, and order other community sanctions. But this isn’t reported, because, as readers probably know by now, if the reporter knows, he not sharing.

Arrington has not talked to the department leaders yet, but said county staff will be working closely with them in the coming weeks to revise the comp plan exactly how the department wants it. And he hopes to do it in about 30 days.

Mike McDaniel, chief of comprehensive planning in the Department of Community Affairs up in Tallahassee is the last-named “department leader.” Is he the person the reporter is referring to? The tired phrase, “county staff will be working closely” with these folks is another self-serving platitude.

Is the county administrator’s “about 30 days” estimate for those things that he said earlier will “take some time”? The reporter may have asked about this, but he didn’t report it. Instead, like a good novel writer, he treats readers to a cutesy but meaningless “summary quote” from his good buddy.

“It’s better to shoot for the sky and miss, than aim for the ground and hit it,” Arrington said.

The only reason to include a quote like this is to make the source feel good about having said something that seems profound. It’s self serving and meaningless. No professional journalist would have thought for one second about including it in a first day story.

Every reporter in the state who covers local government should be acquainted with the basics of comprehensive planning.

It’s part of the job description, on a par with understanding the electoral process, knowing the fundamentals of law making, learning the ins and outs of property assessment, taxation, school funding and “Sunshine State Standards” (Florida school curricula and our annual winter FCAT debates), and a host of other core topics huddled under the umbrella of civics and political science.

Comprehensive planning is a subject a journalist can’t write intelligently about without at least a little background knowledge, which is what a DeSoto Sun reporter tried to do this week. That the reporter had to cover a meeting he knew nothing about is painfully clear on this morning’s front page. This particular young man has been in town a couple of years now, and the comp plan has been in development for all of that time. He should be able to describe it in terms my mother would understand.

Back in August, local commissioners sent the local comp plan to the state, knowing it had shortcomings. Basically, they said, “Let’s throw it on the wall and see what sticks.” The modus operandi was let the state tell them what’s wrong and revise accordingly. Which is exactly what happened. An alert citizenry might question if this is the best way to create policies and draw maps that will affect local homesteads and businesses and ranches for decades to come.

But let’s overlook the reporter’s sorry grasp of the subject. There’s no excuse for a badly constructed story that leads with obscure administrative processes, buries the news somewhere down in the 15th graf, and is anchored with self-serving quotes from friends in local government. If the document on which his story is based was released Wednesday, this reporter had two days, at least, to make calls, get an education and sort things out. He didn’t use his time wisely.

That’s the editorial. Here are the facts:

Comp plan scrutinized by state expert; found not “in compliance” with Florida law.

By Jon Sica, DeSoto News Editor

Department leaders issued a statement of intent to find the comp plan “not in compliance” Wednesday because it is inconsistent with state law, the state’s comp plan, and Florida’s administrative code. The department’s rejection letter outlines 10 reasons why the comp plan failed to comply. Now, county leaders are hoping to fix the comp plan for the state’s satisfaction and garner its approval as soon as possible — preferably before county leaders would have to meet department experts during a judicial hearing to decide its fate

Readers are two paragraphs and four and a half sentences into the story with no clue about why the state rejected the local comprehensive plan. Readers learn the rejection letter includes 10 reasons, but the reporter gives no hint about what even one of them might be.

A reporter who has followed local comprehensive planning would be able to sort through the points and pick one or two of the most significant, giving readers a reason to read the story.

Based on what I’ve read in the papers (ahem), bouncing a plan for this largely agricultural, sparsely populated based on “urban sprawl” seems an eminently newsworthy place to begin. Another the bullet point mentions central water and sewage — subjects that are always red flags waving a dollar sign. Either of these important issues might have given readers an entrance into the story and the reporter a basis for organizing the rest of the information.

The reporter’s time reference in the second graf to Wednesday is confusing. Was there an unscheduled commission meeting that day? If this is the date the state sent the letter, let’s be clear that the commission hasn’t held a meeting and the news story is based on a letter that’s a courtesy, a heads-up, from the state to the locality.

The language of the bureaucracy needs to be translated. A well-informed and well-read reporter knows a letter about “inconsistencies with state law, the state’s comprehensive plan and Florida’s administrative code” is largely legalese. What, pray tell, readers want to know, does the mumbo-jumbo mean?

Instead of answering any of the “inverted pyramid” items such as who, what, when, where or why, the reporter abandons today’s news and uses the third graf to retreat to the safety of history:

The comp plan was approved by the DeSoto County Commission Aug. 28 after a two-hour long public hearing on the subject. The goal of the plan is to keep local growth and development on the county’s terms; balancing the demands of population growth, development, local ecosystems and economic expansion — all within the boundaries of myriad state laws and regulations.

Let’s ignore the passive voice, punctuation problems, abstractions, and the writer’s final cop out phrase, “myriad state laws and regulations.” All in all, this paragraph tells readers the reporter is in over his head. For one thing, the goal of the state-mandated comprehensive plan is not “to keep local growth and development on the county’s terms.” If anything, it’s quite the opposite — it keeps localities from going whichever way they choose at the expense of the region and resources. So perhaps, we hope, he’ll go to an expert, the county’s own land planner, for an explanation. Instead, readers get this

“(Department of Community Affairs) staff has complimented this plan, which is kind of strange to hear,” said Jason Green, planning manager. “But there are portions of it they are very happy with and, overall, they think it’s a good plan.”

Green said the department’s staff even went so far as to
tell him they may use DeSoto’s environmental polices as an example for other counties.

Okay, we live in a small town, and Reporter Jon may well belong to the same gym as Land Planner Jason. I’ll let him have his softball quote, but I do expect some substance soon.

Most of the department’s objections in the letter of intent — which was authored by Mike McDaniel, chief of the department’s office of comprehensive planning — centered around the comp plan’s density and zoning clauses

Now readers learn who “authored” the letter of intent, as if that’s truly important at this particular point. Unfortunately for this reporter, the letter likely “authored” by an urban planner or two within the DCS and drafted for the chief’s signature.

Other readers might wonder what’s the intent of a “letter of intent,” and if that’s something different than the letter of rejection. But, they are not going to be informed.

Readers learn something’s wrong with “density and zoning clauses.” Do the clauses have poor punctuation and spelling? I doubt it. I suspect that there’s something wrong with the county’s policies about density and zoning. Maybe the local land planner can explain:

Form of development – what exactly is that? Open space – is that pastures or parks? “Preservation of valuable resources” is good in a circular-reasoning universe, but is there gold in them thar hills or does this mean the Peace River, Horse Creek and Joshua Creek? Is the reporter trying to tell us the comp plan was thrown out because it fails to protect the watershed?Readers deserve to to know that. About “…and stuff,” I have no comment.

Our reporter has already reported there are 10 points of failure, but now the land planner says there are just two issues. If I think I get what’s going on, it’s not because the reporter has made anything clear.

Urban sprawl, need, concurrency and Development of Regional Impact standards, commonly called DRIs — the state picked apart the comp plan’s policies about these issues.

Is this sentence part of the local land planner’s statement? It sounds as if it’s a paraphrase, and if so, it needs to be attributed to him.

More importantly, an alert reporter would know to ask the planner to explain to readers how a sparsely populated region suffers from “urban sprawl.” A reporter who understands the subject would locate and share the technical meaning of “need.” I happen to know what the next item, “concurrency,” is. But it’s also a technical term most readers would appreciate a snappy definition of from a knowledgeable reporter or the land planner. Just saying that “Development of Regional Impact” is phrase commonly known by its initials does not explain it.

And, what exactly are the local policies the reporter — or land planner (at this point, readers don’t know exactly who) — mentions that got picked apart?

“It comes down to an interpretation of what you’re trying to accomplish,”Green said.”Everybody has their own opinion. I think overall it’s a good plan — we’re proud of it — we have to figure out exactly what the department wants. That’s the million-dollar question.”

Another defensive, self-serving quote from the (I think) gym buddy, a quote that no self-respecting reporter would included in a first-day news story

To bring the comp plan into compliance, the department said county leaders must do the following:

Finally, readers get to see the points the DCA says are problems. Unfortunately, not one item defined, explained, ranked in terms of cost, importance, substance, or any other factor that might help readers understand what the state is asking local government to do

* Revise the five-year schedule of capital improvement to include road deficiencies on U.S. 17 and State Road 70, noting the funding sources for each. If this cannot happen, the department said the county must lower land-use assignments to reduce the impact on those highways.
* Revise the capital improvement and future land-use policies to require the roads and parks serving permitted developments be completed or under construction within three years of board approval.
* Revise future land-use policies, which allocate land to residential and nonresidential land uses, to accommodate the projected population of DeSoto in the year 2030, by reducing the amount of residential and nonresidential land shown on the future land-use map to reflect the needs of projected population.
* Adopt “innovative and flexible techniques and strategies” that will reduce urban sprawl by centralizing developments in hamlets, villages and towns.
* Clarify public land and institution polices that define the types and uses allowed in this category.
* Revise mixed-use community policies to make the number of nonresidential uses allowed proportional to the size of the residential community.
* Revise mixed-use standards to make it less difficult to interpret and implement the comp plan’s standards.
* Revise policies 1.6.10 and 1.6.15 to require the same
conditions for connection to central water and sewer.
* Revise DRI standards to “not only define the density and intensity of uses, but the proportion of the mix of uses allowed.” Ideally, it should ensure “an appropriate and proportional balance between the residential and non-residential use.”
* Create an industrial land-use category in the comp plan and “assign that category to lands in the urban area that are determined to be suitable for industrial development, or restrict industrial uses to suitable urban land-use categories.”

Interim County Administrator Bart Arrington said most of these changes can be easily made on paper, but the rest may take some time.

Uhm, okay, which ones will “take some time?” Maybe those are newsworthy, lead-graf items to bring to the top. Did the reporter ask the administrator which ones might “take some time” and what that time might be, or what made some things more difficult than others? If he did, he doesn’t report it.

“I believe these things are fixable,” Arrington said. “I don’t think it’s an impossible task; we can get these things settled in the time we need so we don’t have to go to the hearing.”

The hearing was mentioned the very beginning and now it’s time to explain it a bit more. (I’m skipping the self-serving, save-my-job quote.) A few readers may know that if a deficient plan isn’t remedied, the state can impose fines, withhold funding, and order other community sanctions. But this isn’t reported, because, as readers probably know by now, if the reporter knows, he not sharing.

Mike McDaniel, chief of comprehensive planning in the Department of Community Affairs up in Tallahassee is the last-named “department leader.” Is he the person the reporter is referring to? The tired phrase, “county staff will be working closely” with these folks is another self-serving platitude.

Is the county administrator’s “about 30 days” estimate for those things that he said earlier will “take some time”? The reporter may have asked about this, but he didn’t report it. Instead, like a good novel writer, he treats readers to a cutesy but meaningless “summary quote” from his good buddy.

“It’s better to shoot for the sky and miss, than aim for the ground and hit it,” Arrington said.

The only reason to include a quote like this is to make the source feel good about having said something that seems profound. It’s self serving and meaningless. No professional journalist would have thought for one second about including it in a first day story.

“The bill comes with two months remaining on a year that has witnessed some of the most high-profile gang violence in Manatee County history, including the Easter Sunday gang shooting on Coquina Beach that left three brothers seriously wounded; and the May 21 shooting death of 9-year-old Stacy Williams III. Three reputed members of the SUR-13 street gang were charged with murder in the case,” Nick Azzara reports.

Azzara’s reporting does many things right. Readers appreciate that he locates knowledgable people who articulate relevant cautions about this staged announcement. He’s a little vague about whether this is a national funding proposal or a local one, but by reading twice and using common sense, an assiduous reader can deduce that all $900 million is unlikely to fatten the local sheriff’s budget. He’s also good to point out the politician’s proposal lacks co-sponsors and a funding source.

The problem is the reporter omits any data that would inform readers, residents and voters about the big picture. We get an anecdote about two events and are told they are “high profile.” But readers never learn if there are two shootings a year, a week, or every day. Readers are told about one gang, but are there others? (I know, I know: gangs are like lawyers; you need two to make a fight.) With “local law enforment officials” on the dias next to the pol, it would have been easy to pry loose even a round-figured indicator, if not a good current number. Elected sheriffs keep these numbers fairly handy, in my experience.

If DeSoto Sun editors had spotted this huge hole in the story, I’m sure they would have grabbed at least one reporter off the third-day homecoming dance piece and asked her to boogie over to the local sheriff’s office and find out if gangs are a problem out here, 60 miles east of Coquina Beach. The congressman’s district includes our neck of the woods and editors and reporters owe local readers a local story.

Another Question Where A Headline Should Be

A question hed is bad enough; when the story doesn’t answer the question, it’s superbad.

“The bill comes with two months remaining on a year that has witnessed some of the most high-profile gang violence in Manatee County history, including the Easter Sunday gang shooting on Coquina Beach that left three brothers seriously wounded; and the May 21 shooting death of 9-year-old Stacy Williams III. Three reputed members of the SUR-13 street gang were charged with murder in the case,” Nick Azzara reports.

Azzara’s reporting does many things right. Readers appreciate that he locates knowledgable people who articulate relevant cautions about this staged announcement. He’s a little vague about whether this is a national funding proposal or a local one, but by reading twice and using common sense, an assiduous reader can deduce that all $900 million is unlikely to fatten the local sheriff’s budget. He’s also good to point out the politician’s proposal lacks co-sponsors and a funding source.

The problem is the reporter omits any data that would inform readers, residents and voters about the big picture. We get an anecdote about two events and are told they are “high profile.” But readers never learn if there are two shootings a year, a week, or every day. Readers are told about one gang, but are there others? (I know, I know: gangs are like lawyers; you need two to make a fight.) With “local law enforment officials” on the dias next to the pol, it would have been easy to pry loose even a round-figured indicator, if not a good current number. Elected sheriffs keep these numbers fairly handy, in my experience.

If DeSoto Sun editors had spotted this huge hole in the story, I’m sure they would have grabbed at least one reporter off the third-day homecoming dance piece and asked her to boogie over to the local sheriff’s office and find out if gangs are a problem out here, 60 miles east of Coquina Beach. The congressman’s district includes our neck of the woods and editors and reporters owe local readers a local story.

Another Question Where A Headline Should Be

A question hed is bad enough; when the story doesn’t answer the question, it’s superbad.

Sun Pundit this morning addresses a phosphate-mining agreement that’s pretty controversial in these parts. His editorial on the topic points out half a dozen or so restrictions in the pact and concludes: “We do suggest that it is time that we ask of ourselves the same standard as we ask of others in protecting our environment.”

Here are the standards Sun Pundit describes: 1. Ban lawn fertilizer. 2. Treat all lawn and road water runoff in retention ponds. 3. Treat retention-pond water until it’s cleaner than the creeks it flows into. 4. Prohibit septic tanks. 5. Run sewer to new houses, “regardless of cost” and “no matter how remote.” 6. Prohibit future construction and roads in the 100-year flood plain. 7. Agree to binding arbitration with no appeal to settle disputes.

Pundit acknowledges that “not in a million years” would Charlotte or DeSoto counties agree to any of this. Nevertheless, and I repeat it for emphasis, he concludes: “We do suggest that it is time that we ask of ourselves the same standard as we ask of others in protecting our environment.”

As a tree-hugging eco-maniac, I applaud DeSoto Sun, Charlotte Sun, all their sister publications, and most of all, the editorial board for articulating this forward-looking position. I happily anticipate future columns and editorials that encourage this position, marshal citizen support, and prod local governments to implement plans and policies to further this vision.

Okay, okay, I get it. The writer is struggling to say there’s lots of safeguards in the mining agreement, safeguards that don’t apply to anyone else except the mining company, so let’s quit bitchin’. But that’s not what he writes. Pundit needs an editor – or at least a composition coach.

And, while editors slept, page designers fed these bon mots to the presses:

Columnist: “Give me the choice of being thrown to hungry lions, getting pulled apart by wild horses, being sawed in two, or lethal injection, and I’ll take the latter every time. And they won’t even have to worry about dirty needles.”

Headline: “Fired teacher wants job back”
In the story: “Kimble, who served as liaison for the school district, said Cline blew the incident out of proportion…”

From the police blotter: “Reports say a man carrying a king’s ransom in methamphetamines got busted Thursday during a routine traffic stop. [He possessed] a bag holding 25.3 grams” of the drug. (An editor would have asked the writer if, at $100 a gram, the drug’s value of $2,530 constitutes a “king’s ransom.” A sentence coach would ask if the elegant English reference to “a king’s ransom” marries well with the American slang “got busted.”

Photo caption: “This native Florida cactus is tended to by local resident [...], who captured it when it briefly opened this gorgeous bloom.” Did he use a net? Did it resist?

Sorry; this is getting too easy.