Reading the Charlotte Sun Newspaper

The local school board is starting an on-line program of classes aimed at reducing its student drop-out rate. So, exactly what is the school drop-out rate? No telling.

Which classes in the curriculum are part of the program? How many students are expected to use the program? No telling.
What does the program cost? No telling.
How does a student enroll? Who supervises the work? No telling.
Where is it to be installed? When does the program begin? No telling.

In an unrelated story inside the paper, the school district’s superintendent, Adrian Cline, show-and-tells his own FDR mementos to the local historical society. Cline comments that FDR was able to hide his disability from the public because “he had an understanding with the media. You’d never see that today.”

Actually, Cline himself seems to have a pretty good understanding with the media. “Reporter” John Lawhorne has been carefully schooled: No telling anything.

So what’s wrong with protecting your friends?

John Lawhorne just doesn’t get it.

In other news, the Lake Placid Journal breaks a really big story. It looks like God will be pursing other interests. Read the rest of this entry »

Two short bits before the larger story:
Bit Number One: Skimming through John Lawhorne’s front page feature this morning about the effect development has on bird watching (news flash: development is not good for birds), Old Word Wolf happened on his unattributed assertion, “The good news for birders is that, for the time being, Southwest Florida still can be considered one of the premier birding areas in the country, if not the world.”

A Google search of “premier birding areas” turns up Sierra Vista and Tuscon, Ariz., Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina, the Rio Grande Valley; Blaine, Birch Bay and Semiahmoo, Wash., Cheraw Reservoir in Colorado, a dozen places in Montana, Lodi Lake, San Francisco Bay and Santa Cruz, Calif., several spots in Wisconsin, Acadia National Park, Maine, Merritt Island, Fla., Cape May, N.J., Lake Alice, N.Y. – you get the idea.

“Premier birding area” is an empty, overused phrase that a naive reporter has culled from his reading. He thought it sounded nice and decided to share.

And, before we get to that serious headline, there’s one more giggle:

Near the close, Lawhorne innocently reports, “Birding requires a minimum of affordable equipment to get started. All you need is a pair of binoculars and a field guide to the local bird fauna and you are ready to head for the outdoors.” Ahem. Lawhorne’s birder is ready for the “naturist camp” they’re trying to build in DeSoto County.

But there’s much more that is deeply troubling about this story. Lawhorne was recently caught using Wikipedia as an unattributed source (the practice is called plagiarism everywhere except the Charlotte Sun) for a rock band story, of all things. So OWW decided to check the data he used to report the size and scope of the bird watching industry: Lawhorne: “The FWS noted that Americans spend an estimated $18.1 billion a year to watch wildlife.”

A key-word search produced this archived news release from the U.S. Department of the Interior dated May 12, 1995: Bird Migration Thrills Millions, Boosts Economy, but Loss of Habitat Threatens Popular Species and a Rapidly Growing Industry. Along about the second page, this paragraph appears:

“In a study released by the Service, “The Economic Contribution of Bird and Waterfowl Recreation in the United States during 1991,” indicates that, of the estimated $18.1 billion Americans spend annually to watch wildlife, $5.2 billion is spent on bird watching, using the most conservative economic assumptions. That figure could run as high an $9 billion, according to the report’s author, Rob Southwick of Southwick Associates. Using conservative assumptions, the number of jobs supported by bird watching is 200,000, according to the study.”

Without telling, Lawhorne feeds readers a 13-year-old press release whose information is based on a study published four years prior to that. And, he misrepresents the information. Here’s how he does it.

Lawhorne: “About 200,000 jobs nationally are supported by birdwatching. The FWS noted that Americans spend an estimated $18.1 billion a year to watch wildlife.”

Any editor worth his paycheck would notice that “wildlife” is not restricted to birds. Lawhorne’s own source attributes less than a third of that amount (about $5.2 billion)to bird watching. But Lawhorne doesn’t tell readers this, and neither does he tell readers that the job data is 17 years old.

The government press release goes on to report, “All indications are the bird-watching and -feeding hobby is growing fast. The number of specialty stores selling wild birdseed, feeders, and equipment has exploded in recent years …”

And Lawhorne dutifully copies: “According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all indications are that the bird watching and feeding hobby is growing fast. The number of specialty stores selling wild birdseed, feeders and equipment has grown dramatically in recent years.”

Lawhorne, the copyist, is unable to supply what any wide-awake editor would ask for: What numbers constitute dramatic growth? He can’t because his 1995 press release about the 1991 data doesn’t say.

In addition, Lawhorne is unable to report what the 2008 economic downturn, which has shuttered thousands of small specialty shops, has done to his claim of dramatic growth in recent years – that is, almost 20 years ago. For example, Wild Bird Center Inc., a retail-store franchise operation that targets the bird watching and feeding hobbyist, has declined from “more than 100” retail outlets five years ago to about 80 today, according to OWW’s historical review of the firm’s press releases.

Why is OWW picking on John Lawhorne? For one thing, she likes her news reporters to be accurate, fair, and honest. Today’s big-play feature and its author are none of these. Lawhorne is thumbing his nose at his readers, his editors, his publisher, and the profession of journalism.

This led the police blotter yesterday morning. Why would any responsible reporter or editor run four paragraphs about “a scam” that “a woman reported” and then in the fourth paragraph report the whole thing is an urban legend?

Credit card scams at gas pumpsards at gas pumps. (Which law enforcement authorities? Judge Judy? Where in the story does the reporter describe how to be careful using credit cards at gas pumps?)

A scam that has been reported recently as gas prices rise involves a customer using his credit or debit card at the pump, getting gas, taking the receipt and then driving off. (Who reported the scam recently? Where in Our Little Town did this happen? What’s the scam in getting gas, taking the receipt and driving off? What’s the relationship between rising gas prices and the scam?)

If the customer does not hit the “clear” button on some pumps, it may be possible for the next customer to continue to pump gas under the same credit card, even though a receipt for the first delivery has already been issued. (It may be or IS? How does this happen? Which are “some” pumps: Shell or BP or Murphy Oil? Where’s the “clear button” on a fuel pump?)

One area woman said she checked her account Wednesday morning, only to find someone had gotten $30 worth of gas, using her debit card, within eight minutes of her purchase. She had received her receipt but did not push “clear.” She believed another person came after her and pumped gas using her account. (Which area woman? Does she have a name and address? “Wednesday” says this happened July 30 in Our Little Town.)

Snopes.com, an Internet “urban legend” site, said pressing “clear” does not do anything and the transaction is completed as soon as you hang up the dispenser. (YOU?)

Law enforcement authorities remind people to be careful when using credit carda.

Far more common, however, is the use of “skimmers,” electronic devices that read information about an account from the magnetic strip. Skimmers can be installed and later retrieved. (If skimmers are the real problem, why bury the info in the fifth graf? What does a skimmer look like? How can one avoid using a skimmer? Have any been found locally?)

In any case, your best protection is to remain vigilant and check the status of your accounts frequently.

It’s a small town. Reporters develop friendships with people in high places. Real reporters keep the evidence out of their stories. Laura Schmid seem unable to do that. This is how she reports one school board member’s comments during a debate on whether to re-up with Florida School Boards Association:

Board chairwoman Karen Chancey diplomatically oberserved that she understood the arguments for both sides. [...] She pragmatically observed, “We can always rejoin again.”

We’re glad Laura likes Karen, but it’s wrong to work her personal opinion about her BFF’s diplomacy and pragmatism into her reporting.

Schmid’s journalistic sin is especially heinous during election season.

And one more thing. Because this is Old Word Wolf’s blog and opinions are permitted, OWW is reproducing this sorry quotation from an earlier post, just to keep it fresh in the minds of readers who might like to know what’s happening in local science classes:

“My personal belief is creationism and I believe it should be taught along with evolution because our students should have a choice,” said DeSotoCounty
School Board member Karen Chancey.

No wonder DeSoto County schools’ FCAT science test scores have headed south.

This morning’s school-district budget story gives readers a laundry list of cost reductions undertaken by the DeSoto School Board in order to balance a budget that will be receiving less state funding for the next school year.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible for readers to gauge the impact of the cuts because the reporter won’t tell readers the size of the overall, proposed budget and she doesn’t report the size of the state allocation that’s being reduced.

Taking $2 million from a $6-million budget is a whopping 33 percent hit. Taking $2 million from a $60-million budget is a more manageable 3-percent belt tightening. Taking $2 million from a $600-million budget is a minuscule 0.3-percent shave. So which is it, dear reporter? She’s not telling.

Readers who want the facts have to make a phone call to the district. There, they can learn DeSoto had anticipated income of about $40 million, of which $27 million would have come from state funds, the largest income category in its estimated $60-million budget.

Old World Wolf made a phone call to clarify a story; why didn’t the paid reporter, who has attained the status of “editor,” do the same before she hit the send key?

Most reporters (local exceptions exist) – especially ones who’ve earned the title “editor,” and certainly editors who handle our daily dose of cops and robbers – know readers expect four or five basic facts in a story’s first sentence or two: like who, what, when, where, and why. In some cops stories, readers can forgive the “why” part. After all, who really fathoms the motives of the most deeply depraved among us? But there’s no excuse for leaving out “where.”

In today’s lead blotter item, the reporter-editor doesn’t write a dateline and, while not technically omitting “where,” she withholds it until the seventh and last paragraph. Meany.

As a direct result of that omission, a simple story about burglars who tried to reduce a Sears store’s inventory Monday dissolves into a head-scratcher. The reporter ends up generating more questions than she answers.

Identified at the top as Bartow men, two big-screen TV fans executed their feloneous heist, it is implied, in that somewhat distant city, 35 miles up the road. But does tiny Bartow even have a Sears store? No, it doesn’t. Readers with local knowledge may grasp this, but the reporter doesn’t share that with the general population, so myriad possibilities arise. Englewood? Murdock? Lots of Sears stores around these parts.

It sort of sounds like, a reader might guess, that Bartow police are providing the information. The story says witnesses called police – but it’s a deputy (district unknown) who pulls over the getaway car. In these parts, deputies are affiliated with sheriff’s departments, not police forces, so who exactly did what?

The reporter writes with initial caps that the Department of Corrections had sent the men in the car out into the world as part of an early-release program. So which Department of Corrections with capitals – Florida, Georgia, New Jersey?

In the end – which coincides with the seventh paragraph – DeSoto County Sheriff’s deputies arrested the bad guys. In DeSoto County, there’s a small Sears store in the 1100 block of Vermont Avenue. Maybe that’s where this story happened. But the reporter doesn’t share.

Editor’s Disease

Susan Hoffman, Assistant DeSoto Editor, entertains readers this morning with her olfactory nostalgia for the scents of her childhood home in Akron, Ohio. She has caught the editor’s disease that’s rampant in these parts. It’s characterized by a journalist’s delusion that readers need to know aobut her childhood 25 years ago in a city 1,500 miles away instead of what’s going on in their own community. Editor’s disease often results in a compulsion to write about one’s own family and its charming foibles, pets, and personal vacations. In one notorious local case, a diseased editor produced a column about eyebrow waxing and another about 16 bags of laundry. Old Word Wolf hopes the new editor becomes innoculated as soon as possible.

The cops item as it ran … :

Two Bartow men were arrested Monday after several witnesses allegedly saw them breaking into the Sears store.

According to the police report, witnesses called police Monday night after hearing what sounded like a gunshot. Several witnesses said they then saw two men breaking into the Sears store.

The witnesses described the vehicle the men were driving, and when a deputy passed a vehicle of that description, he made a routine traffic stop.

According to the police report, the deputy could see several flat-screen TVs, along with some gloves and what looked like a mask. When the deputy asked for ID, he learned the two were on early-release status from the Department of Corrections.

According to the police report, several witnesses positively identified the two men and the vehicle. The store owner identified the TVs in the car as having come from the store by matching up serial numbers. The TVs were valued at $5,000.

Police also discovered a camouflage jacket in the car, along with two pairs of gloves, a mask and a crow bar.

DeSoto County sheriff’s deputies arrested Marion Bruce Stewart, 29, and Christopher Lowell Wilson, 36, both of Bartow, on charges of grand theft ($5,000 to $10,000), burglary of a structure, criminal mischief and possession of burglary tools. Bond for each man was set at $13,250.

Friday’s headline on an op-ed piece: “DeSoto Should Be Proud of its Schools.” It’s one man’s praise for the local district’s standardized test scores, which did improve in some areas. Unfortunately, neither headline nor story gives readers the whole picture. The praise serves to hide the disappointing achievements in DeSoto’s public schools.

Here are facts that not one of the three articles by three reporters over the last month covering FCAT scores has acknowledged: Among 17 categories, the gap between the local passing rate and statewide passing rate was eliminated in just one class for one test (fourth grade math). In eight categories, the local lag behind the state average was reduced to some degree, but in eight remaining categories, the local lag behind state averages increased. Here’s a blow-by-blow summary starting at the top and working down through science, math and reading.

Science
First, DeSoto High’s 11th grade science scores went down while statewide numbers went up: In 2007, 24 percent of local 11th graders passed FCAT’s science section. In 2008, only 21 percent passed. That’s a 3 percentage-point drop. Statewide, 11th graders made a modest gain: 37 percent passed the science section in 2007 and 38 percent passed in 2008. The numbers tell the story: In 2007, DeSoto High’s pass rate lagged 13 points behind the statewide average; this year the gap widened to 17 points.

Among local eighth graders, 25 percent passed FCAT’s science section in both 2007 and 2008. In the same period, the statewide average rose from 38 percent to 40 percent. Again, the numbers tell the story: in 2007, DeSoto eighth graders lagged behind the state-wide average pass rate by 13 points; this year the gap widened to 15 points.

For fifth graders, the youngest group tested in science, the data shows a slightly better story: In 2007, only 23 percent passed, but by 2008 the pass-rate jumped 11 points to 34 percent. That means DeSoto’s 2007 pass rate lagged behind the state’s by 29 points; in 2008 the district reduced the gap to 9 points below the statewide pass rate.

Math
Turning to math scores, in 2007, 53 percent of DeSoto High’s 10th graders passed FCAT math, 12 percentage points behind the statewide pass rate for the same group. Locally, in 2008, 56 percent passed, but because of statewide gains, the local pass rate gap increased to 13 points behind the state numbers.

Among local ninth graders, 46 percent passed math in 2007 and 56 percent passed in 2008. That commendable improvement lessened the local lag behind the state pass rate from 14 points in 2007 to 9 points behind the state in 2008.

Among eighth graders, 53 percent passed math in 2007, but only 51 percent passed in 2008. That decline increased the local lag behind the state from 10 percentage points in 2007 to 16 points in 2008.

Among local seventh graders, 53 percent passed math in 2007, making the local lag 6 percentage points below statewide achievement. In 2008, 59 percent of DeSoto seventh graders passed math, narrowing to gap to 2 points below the statewide rate.

Among local sixth graders, 51 percent passed math in 2007, putting them one point ahead of the statewide pass rate. However, in 2008, only 41 percent of local sixth graders passed the math test, creating a 12-point lag behind the statewide pass rate.

Among local fifth graders, 42 percent passed math in 2007, leaving them 17 points behind the statewide pass rate. In 2008, 58 percent passed, reducing the fifth-grade math gap to 3 points.

The best story comes from local fourth grade classes, where the math pass rate jumped from 61 percent in 2007 to 73 percent in 2008. That improvement erased an 8-point lag in 2007, turning it into a 2-point exceed in 2008.

Reading
Turning to reading scores, just 19 percent of DeSoto 10th graders passed in 2007 and 24 percent passed in 2008. Statewide in the same period, the average number of students passing 10th grade reading increased from 34 percent to 38 percent. The numbers tell the story: DeSoto’s pass rate lagged 15 points in 2007; in 2008 it lagged a litte less — by 10 points.

Among local ninth graders, 27 percent passed reading in 2007 and 31 percent passed in 2008. Statewide, the percentage of students passing increased from 41 percent in 2007 to 46 percent in 2007. DeSoto’s 2007 pass rate lagged 14 points behind the state; in 2008, the local lag increased to 15 points behind the state.

For local eighth graders, 39 percent passed reading in 2007 and 40 percent passed in 2008. Statewide, the pass percentage increased from 49 percent in 2007 to 53 percent in 2008. That means in 2007, DeSoto’s eighth grade reading pass rate lagged 10 points behind the state; in 2008, the gap increased to 13 points.

Among local seventh graders, 50 percent passed reading in 2007 and 57 percent passed in 2008. Statewide, 63 percent of their peers passed in 2007 and 65 percent passed in 2008. The local achievement gap narrowed from 13 points in 2007 to 8 points in 2008.

For local sixth graders, 55 percent passed reading in both 2007 and 2008, compared to 62 percent statewide in 2007 and 63 percent in 2008. The local gap increased from 7 points to 8 points in the period.

Among local fifth graders, 61 percent passed reading in 2007; that declined to 60 percent in 2008. Statewide, 72 percent passed in 2007, declining to 67 percent in 2008. The DeSoto gap was 11 points in 2007 and narrowed to 7 points in 2008.

Among the youngest FCAT reading students, fourth graders, 60 percent of local youngsters passed in 2007; in 2008, that rose to 68 percent, significantly narrowing the district’s lag behind the state achievement levels. In 2007, 68 percent of students statewide passed fourth-grade reading; in 2008, 70 percent passed. The local gap was reduced from 8 points to 2 points behind the statewide average.

In Conclusion
Reporters have an obligation not to sugarcoat news. When local officials tell reporters, readers, taxpayers and voters all’s well, genuine journalists will dig behind the self-serving spin. Not one single paid staffer at the DeSoto Sun bothered to do that. Maybe they don’t know how.

It took Old Word Wolf about a two hours to sift through Florida Department of Education Excel worksheets to compile the info and another hour to write it up. Shame on Sun “reporters” who would rather make nicey nice with Powers That Be than inform readers how their schools are actually performing — which is significantly below statewide averages.