Stupid news director violates journalistic ethics

“Journalists cannot drop professional affiliation when it is convenient for them or for their cause,” Deni Elliott, executive director of the Ethics Institute, Dartmouth College, wrote in FineLine: The Newsletter On Journalism Ethics (September 1989). “People who wish to work on behalf of a particular cause should work in public relations or advocacy groups, not for the news media. Journalists should confine their public voices to their own professional arena.”

Unfortunately, some in the news media fail to follow this basic tenet of journalistic ethics. For example, Scott Rothschild, the former statehouse reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World, simultaneously served as the president of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Topeka (UUFT). In that role, Rothschild decided to make a political statement when his 128-member fellowship wrote a check to the local Topeka School Fund for $1,323, the amount it would have paid had its building been on the tax rolls.

The Jan/Feb 2003 issue of UU World: The Magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association quoted Rothschild concerning how UUFT decided to make this stand: “The decision wasn't a slam dunk, said member Scott Rothschild, who suggested the idea. ‘The social justice committee had a pretty thorough discussion about it. There was a lot of concern about separation of church and state and why we should help the schools when it was really up to the politicians. But in the end, people thought this was one year the funding situation was really bad so we should help out.’”

Apparently, no member of the Journal-World management team took issue with Rothschild’s ethical lapse. He continued to be a statehouse reporter--and report on political issues on which his organization had adopted positions—until 2014, when he assumed a public relations position with the Kansas Association of School Boards.

While UU World did not mention Rothschild’s position with the news media, R.J. Dickens, the news director of Wichita’s KCTU, has made no effort to hide his affiliation with the news media while promoting It's Time to Fix Stupid, a political action committee (PAC) that, according to Dickens, wants to form a national super-PAC to target “stupid” candidates around the country. Last month, It’s Time to Fix Stupid held an online poll to identify the stupidest legislator in Kansas. With the exception of “a box of rocks,” all the nominees in the poll were Republicans.

Several newspapers have quoted Dickens saying, “Kansas has the third-least-educated legislature in the country.” His source is a June 2011 report in The Chronicle of Education. “Arkansas has the least formally educated Statehouse, with 25 percent of its 135 legislators not having any college experience at all, compared with 8.7 percent of lawmakers nationwide,” The New York Times reported on the report. “It was followed by state legislatures in Montana (20 percent), Kansas (16 percent), South Dakota (16 percent) and Arizona (16 percent).”

The Chronicle also looked at the percentage of state lawmakers who have a bachelor's degree or higher. Of the 7,000-plus state legislators in America, 74.7% have a bachelor's degree or higher. In Kansas, the percentage is 68.6%. This percentage is higher than Arkansas (60.4%) and Montana (64.7%). However, it is also higher percentage than New Hampshire (53.4%), Maine (58%), Delaware and New Mexico (59.7%), South Dakota (60.9%), Nevada (65.1%), and Wyoming (66.7%).

When Dickens, as the executive director It's Time to Fix Stupid says, “Kansas has the third-least-educated legislature in the country,” he appears to be suggesting that those without any college education are stupid. In addition, he appears to believe a better-educated legislature would make Kansas a better-run state. But where is the evidence to support this belief?

Last December, 24/7 Wall St. published “The Best and Worst Run States in America: A Survey of All 50.” Kansas, which supposedly has the “third-least educated legislature,” ranked #21. Montana, which has the second-least educated legislature, narrowly missed the top 10 list of best-run states at #11. Wyoming, which has a lower percentage of legislators with a bachelor’s degree or higher than Kansas, is the second best-run state. South Dakota, which also has a lower percentage of legislators with a bachelor’s degree of higher than Kansas, also made the top 10. Nebraska is the best-run state. It has a slightly higher percentage of legislators with a bachelor’s degree than Kansas (68.9% vs. 68.6%).

The worst-run state is Illinois, where 81.9% of its legislators have a bachelor’s degree or higher. California, which has the highest percentage of legislators with a bachelor’s degree or higher at 89.9%, ranks #30 on the best-run state list. (California was ranked last the previous year.) New York, which has the fourth highest percentage of legislators with a bachelor’s degree or higher at 86.8%, ranks #33 on the best-run state list.

There does not appear to be a correlation between how well-run a state is and the education level of the legislators in that state. That would make Dickens’ argument a specious one.

Dickens is certainly not the first bitter liberal to claim that Kansas legislators are stupid simply because they don't share his liberal worldview. In November 1999, PitchWeekly reported on the comments of Robert McKnight, a political consultant and husband of Caroline McKnight, then the executive director of the lefitst MAINstream Coalition, before the Greater Kansas City Women's Political Caucus. "I ran campaigns for 12 years before I went to Topeka,” McKnight said. “It was embarrassing! Have you gone and looked at these people who represent the state of Kansas? ... There are not enough smart women in politics, or the smart women aren't in politics. We've got a bunch of farmers up there. We've got a bunch of retired guys."

How odd that a farming state like Kansas would have legislators who know something about farming! And those retired guys? What do they know? Incidentally, my cousin, an Illinois farmer, was recently featured online discussing "variable-rate seeding.” I very much doubt McKnight could understand the discussion. In fact, he may not even understand his own field of public consultancy all that well. He ran for the Kansas House as a Democrat in 2010 and received just 38% of the vote.

Oh, and about that online poll concerning the “stupidest legislator in Kansas.” The “winner” was State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook. Pilcher-Cook was a single mother working two jobs when she decided to go back to college. She graduated magna cum laude in 1993, and then went on to earn an MBA. She is better educated than Wilson and the vast majority of those who participated in his ridiculous poll.

Now Dickens might argue that earning college degrees does not mean that someone is intelligent. However, that argument would step on his point concerning Kansas having the "third-least-educated legislature in the country."

Dickens would be wise to stick to being a new director and confine his public voice to his own professional arena. He would look much less stupid if he did so.

Scott Stanford: Liar

Conservatives in Douglas County are well aware of the liberal bias exhibited by the Lawrence Journal-World (J-W). For many years, Scott Rothschild served as that newspaper’s Statehouse reporter. It didn’t seem to matter to J-W management that, at the very same time he was supposed to be providing objective reporting, he was also serving as the president of a liberal organization in Topeka. Last year, Rothschild left the J-W and accepted a position as a propagandist for the Kansas Association of School Boards. Unfortunately, he was replaced at the J-W by Peter Hancock, who, like Rothschild, is merely a Democratic Party operative with a byline.

What some conservatives may not be aware of is how the J-W’s liberal bias excludes many conservatives from sharing their opinions on the newspaper’s online forum. These conservatives essentially broke an unwritten forum rule, i.e., "posting while conservative." In the process, those left to comment on the J-W website make up a virtual Council of Coprophagia, in which liberals feed off the waste deposited by their fellow liberals.

I had this happen to me at the end of May. My account was suddenly gone and all the comments I had offered were removed as well. I reviewed the forum rules again to see if I may have violated one. However, I could not find any rule that I could have violated. I emailed Nick Gerik, the J-W’s digital editor, and asked him why my account was removed, but received no answer. Therefore, I can only speculate as to why my account was removed. I had written a letter to the editor about the Pacific Educational Group and USD 497 earlier in May, and then added more information in the comments section. I believe I may have raised questions that caused some in the local educational establishment a little discomfort. 

While J-W General Manager Scott Stanford was with the Steamboat Pilot & Today in Colorado, his wife, Kelly, was the director of curriculum and instruction at the Steamboat Springs school district. After the couple moved to Lawrence, Kelly took a position with Communities In Schools of Mid-America, Inc. Like the Pacific Educational Group, Danette Clark's education blog lists Communities in Schools as a liberal indoctrinating organization. In Texas, Clark has noted that the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development "partners with many liberal education organizations, including the Houston Annenberg Challenge, CES Small Schools Project, and Communities in Schools of Texas." Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground terrorist and current education "expert," has been associated with both the Annenberg Challenge and the "small schools movement." As I noted in a blog item last year, Ayers is also closely associated with the "critical race theory" upon which Pacific Educational Group's program is based.

 I was on vacation for the beginning of June, so I dropped the issue for a while. But then I read a letter to the editor from an individual who bashed Kansas and said he was moving to California. I don't like when people denigrate my adopted state, so I responded with my own letter to the editor. After reading several personal attacks (which are violations of the forum rules) directed at me, I decided to contact the J-W’s general manager, Scott Stanford, on July 7. I will include the full exchange with Mr. Stanford so that I cannot be accused of taking his comments out of context:

Mr. Stanford: 

This comment was offered on your forum today by a David Carson: 

"More 'blah blah blah' from Kevin. In my 48 years I have never run across someone so arrogant, hateful, and unhappy."
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/jul/07/letter-kansas-not-so-bad/ 

I'm trying to figure out why comments such as this one are allowed to stand on your forum, yet I was booted from the forum after violating not a single one of the forum rules 

I have spoken with many conservatives in Lawrence over the past several years, and, like me, they believe that the J-W inconsistently enforces its forum rules. Conservatives are routinely kicked off of the forum, while liberals are allowed to violate the rules with impunity. Many conservatives say they simply refuse to comment on the forum since they are subjected to many personal attacks when they do so. 

There are also several forum users who are obviously violating the forum's rule regarding the use of actual names. These folks set up bogus Facebook accounts in order to start an account on the J-W forum. It's probably not a coincidence that these same users tend to be among the least civil. Among these users are "Lawrence Freeman," "Paul Beyer" (whose sole Facebook friend is John Ayo from Nigeria), and James Howlette (a comic book character).* 

It's your forum and your rules, so I suppose you can enforce them as you like. However, the inconsistent enforcement does not reflect well on your publication. 

Sincerely,
Kevin Groenhagen

I received a response the same day: 

Kevin: 

Thanks for your email and feedback. Enforcement of rules on the forum involves a fair amount of subjectivity. Our editors try to be fair and reasonable.

Unfortunately, history has proven that debating forum decisions is generally counter-productive. Instead, I encourage users who are unhappy with our forums to participate in other community forums that are moderated differently. 

I have passed along your note about Lawrence Freeman, Paul Beyer and James Howlette so that those fake users can be removed. 

Thanks again for your note and feedback.
 ----
Scott Stanford

My second email:

Thank you. 

I have asked your moderators to give me an explanation concerning why my account was terminated several weeks ago. I never heard a response. I have read the forum rules, and cannot see where I violated any of them. 

BTW, the user "Barb Gordon" has also set up a fake account at Facebook. See https://www.facebook.com/barbara.gordon.92798 

Like "James Howlette," Barb Gordon is a comic book figure, i.e., the alter ego of Batgirl. 

Kevin Groenhagen

I received no response to this message. After noticing the users with bogus names continued to have active accounts, I emailed Mr. Stanford the next day:

Mr. Stanford: 

"I have passed along your note about Lawrence Freeman, Paul Beyer and James Howlette so that those fake users can be removed." 

 Looks as if those three fake users, as well as Barb Gordon and Philipp Wannemaker (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009691412326&sk=friends), are still there. A bogus account is a violation of the forum rules:
 http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/oct/09/journal-world-websites-require-commenters-identify 

David Carson's personal attacks (which are explicitly against your forum rules) are also still there:
 http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/jul/07/letter-kansas-not-so-bad/?letters_to_editor 

Meanwhile, I cannot post after following the forum rules. Again, the J-W seems to have one set of rules for liberal users and another set for conservative users. That does not reflect well on your publication and its employees. 

Sincerely,
Kevin Groenhagen

Mr. Stanford's final response to me:

Kevin: 

Thanks for your email. 

This isn't something we're going to debate. As you have noted before, it's our forum to moderate as we think best. 

I understand and accept your criticism of our publication and our employees. That criticism does not change any of our decisions. 

Best regards,

 ----
Scott Stanford

My final message to Mr. Stanford:

So you lied to me when you said the bogus accounts would be removed?

It’s been six days since Mr. Stanford wrote, "I have passed along your note about Lawrence Freeman, Paul Beyer and James Howlette so that those fake users can be removed." However, all those users, as well as Barb Gordon and Philipp Wannemaker, continue to have active accounts. Unless I am misreading the meaning of Mr. Stanford’s words, he clearly lied to me.

While Mr. Stanford does not appear to be a man of integrity, he did say something we conservatives should consider:  “I encourage users who are unhappy with our forums to participate in other community forums that are moderated differently.”

We have had the discussion before about having our own forum, but really haven’t moved on making that happen. Would it be beneficial to have our own forum, or is emailing to one another sufficient? Is there anyone who can set up a decent forum for us? If it costs a little to buy the software and host the forum, are there others who would join me in providing the funds to make it possible? Can we come up with a set of rules that, unlike the J-W’s, are consistently and uniformly enforced.

Any ideas?

* If you visit the Facebook pages of those I mentioned to Mr. Stanford, you will find that they have no listed friends or, as in the case of Paul Beyer, just a single friend, i.e., John Ayo from Nigeria. Perhaps Mr. Beyer is a bit like Jack Nicholson’s character in “About Schmidt,” where the only person he seemed able to talk to was a Tanzanian boy named Ndugu Umbo. However, I think Nicholson’s character would also have family members, fraternity brothers, former co-workers, etc., listed as friends. It appears to me that these individuals started bogus accounts on Facebook so that they could skirt the J-W’s new forum rules, which allows them to issue personal attacks against others anonymously.

Bush Derangement Syndrome: Decade 2

David Burress hates George W. Bush. In fact, in January 2003 he helped the far-left Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice raise funds by hosting a "Sorry-Ass State of the Union" house party. Sadly, Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) appears to be a long-term affliction with some. Burress presents an example of this phenomenon. 

On February 26, the Lawrence Journal-World published the following letter from yours truly:

To the editor: 

In his Sunday column, Leonard Pitts writes the following: “…the wheels began to come off the Bush administration’s argument for invading Iraq, i.e., to find the weapons of mass destruction. But of course, there were no such weapons, an inconvenient truth to which Team Bush responded with a new, after-the-fact rationale. Now, the argument for war was and always had been the need to free the poor, suffering Iraqi people.” 

First, as noted by the New York Times last October, WMDs were found in Iraq. Of course, Pitts would argue that these were “old” WMDs. That may be the case. However, in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, Saddam Hussein was required to destroy ALL of his WMDs. If he failed to do that, isn’t it likely that he failed to destroy newer WMDs as well? There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam sent WMDs to Syria prior to the invasion.* There is precedent for this since Saddam sent most of his air force to Iran prior to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. 

As far as the after-the-fact rationale, the Bush administration cited several rationales before the invasion. WMDs was one. However, freeing the Iraqi people was also a major rationale cited prior to the invasion. Pitts may have forgotten that the operation to remove Saddam from power was called Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The point of my letter was to point out that Leonard Pitts, the Pulitzer-prize-winning prevaricator, was not truthful when he wrote that no WMDs were found in Iraq and that the Bush administration then cam up with an after-the-fact rationale, i.e., freeing the Iraqi people. Note that I did not express an opinion regarding whether or not I believed it was a good thing to invade Iraq. I believe I merely presented the facts in a dispassionate manner.

Well, Burress, a retired KU professor and current president of the Ad Astra Institute of Kansas, took issue with my letter and offered what I suppose he considered a rebuttal:

To the editor: 

Connecting the dots in his evasive letter of Feb. 26, Kevin Groenhagen appears to be claiming that:

1. President Bush could have persuaded us to go to war against Iraq even if he had admitted that any WMDs left in Iraq were useless rusted hulks; and

2. The invasion of Iraq was a good idea because Bush had a secondary goal of “freedom for Iraq” — even though the actual result was instead a combination of chaos, anarchy, and warlordism. 

If that’s what Groenhagen means, his judgment is just plain wacko. If that’s not what he means, his letter makes no sense.

Of course, there was nothing evasive about my letter. It addressed facts that Burress could not refute. Regarding his two points, note that the first ignores the "dot" regarding the fact that there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Saddam's newer WMDs went to Syria. Ignoring that "dot" is an actual example of evasiveness. Burress also implies that Bush knew beforehand that "any WMDs left in Iraq were useless rusted hulks," but didn't admit that. What Burress and others with BDS fail to acknowledge is that, just a few short months before the invasion, the Clinton administration argued that Saddam had WMDs and, thus, was "a clear and present danger at all times." In other words, if those on the left believe it was a lie to say Saddam had WMDs, then they must acknowledge that that lie originated with Bush's predecessor. Those with BDS also seem to forget that even those who opposed the invasion of Iraq, including Joe Wilson, believed Saddam had more than just WMDs that were "useless rusted hulks."

On Burress' second point, again, I never expressed an opinion regarding whether the invasion of Iraq was a good or bad idea. In other words, contrary to his claim in his final paragraph, I offered no judgment, wacko or otherwise.

Unfortunately, BDS can cause many, even those with Ph.D.'s, to lose their senses and ability to offer cogent arguments.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Being limited to 250 words, I was unable to go into the evidence suggesting that Saddam's newer WMDs went to Syria prior to the invasion. Iraqi General Georges Sada has claimed that Iraq’s WMDs were flown to Syria prior to the invasion.

According to Sada, “On June 4, 2002, a three-mile-long irrigation dam, which had been drawing water from the Orontes River in the northwestern district of Zeyzoun, Syria, collapsed, inundating three small villages and destroying scores of homes…. As soon as word of the disaster was broadcast on television, help began arriving from all over the Middle East.”

Iraq was one of the countries to send aid to Syria. However, Sada claims that the Iraqi planes and trucks that traveled to Syria did not carry supplies for those in need. “Weapons and equipment were transferred both by land and by air,” Sada wrote. “The only aircraft available at the time were one Boeing 747 jumbo jet and a group of Boeing 727s. But this turned out to be the perfect solution to Saddam’s problem. Who would suspect commercial airliners of carrying deadly toxins and contraband technology out of the country? So the planes were quickly reconfigured.”[1]

Indeed, according to Agence France Presse (AFP) on June 9, 2002, “Iraq said Sunday it has sent 20 planeloads of humanitarian assistance to Syria to help victims of Tuesday’s Zeyzoun dam collapse in the north of the neighbouring country.” AFP noted that Iraq would send foodstuffs, pharmaceutical products, and “teams of specialised doctors, surgeons and chemists to Syria.”[2]

Satellite imagery also picked up unusual activity on the Iraq-Syria border before and during the invasion. James R. Clapper, who headed the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 2003, has said U.S. intelligence tracked a large number of vehicles, mostly civilian trucks, moving from Iraq into Syria. Clapper suggested the trucks may have contained materiel related to Iraq’s WMD programs.[3]

In a January 5, 2004 letter to Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who had defected from Syria to Western Europe, said he knew of three sites in Syria where Iraq’s WMDs were kept. One of those sites was a series on tunnels under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. Reportedly, the tunnels were part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of the Scud missile.[4] Interestingly, al-Baida is located near the Zeyzoun dam.

That same month, David Kay, who had recently resigned as the head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said, “[W]e know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”[5]

---

[1] Georges Sada, Saddam’s Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein, p. 259.

[2] http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/ACOS-64BRQW?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=syr

[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/30/iraq/main580883.shtml

[4] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39182

[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/25/wirq25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/25/ixnewstop.html

Courageous Conversations: A Colossal Failure

Several months ago I wrote about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the Lawrence school district has spent on a socialist and, frankly, racist program known as "Courageous Conversations." USD 497 has contracted with the San Francisco-based Pacific Educational Group (PEG) since 2010 to bring this program to Lawrence. The stated goal of the program is to reduce the achievement gap between white and minority students.

Unfortunately, USD 497 appears to have gotten little, if any, return on its investment with PEG. Consider these charts:

As you can see, the percent of African American students scoring proficient or above in reading grew significantly between 2006-2009. However, the percent scoring proficient or above has essentially leveled off since then, despite hundreds of thousands spent with PEG since 2010.

The percent of African American students scoring proficient or above in math also grew significantly between 2006-2009. Gains were made in 2011 and 2012. However, the percent scoring proficient or above in 2013* is actually lower than it was before the district contracted with PEG.

Like African American students, white students are doing slightly better in reading than they were doing in 2009. However, like African American students, in math white students made significant gains between 2006-2009. And, like African American students, white students performed better in 2009 than they did in 2013.

If we compare the percent of students scoring proficient or above in 2009, which is before PEG began working with the district, with 2013, we see that the gap between white and African American students has narrowed by just .4%. However, the gap in math proficiency has grown by 2.8%.

Unfortunately, this lack of progress appears to be common with districts that have worked with PEG. For example, after paying PEG more than $850,000 over three years, the achievement gap between white and black students in St. Paul, Minn., remained unchanged. The achievement gap between white and Hispanic students actually widened. Nevertheless, in 2013 the school board there voted to spend another $380,000 with PEG for the 2013-2014 school year. That's equal to the salaries and benefits of 7.5 teachers. 

* Kansas did not release data for 2014.