Is Coastsider Orwellian?
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George Orwell. Click to see what Wikipedia has to say about him.
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If there was a question I thought I wouldn’t have to ask, it’s whether Coastsider is Orwellian. But I’m asking the question of our audience, because a distinguished Coastsider has made the accusation in a public forum.
Monday, I sent out a cheery newsletter describing some features of the site that I thought our readers would find interesting. It included the following item:
Finally, the hottest story on Coastsider right now is letter from a former planning commissioner about the HMB Planning Commission meeting which APPROVED THE NEW CCWD PIPELINE AGAINST THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE COASTAL COMMISSION. There’s some excellent discussion that includes one of the planning commissioners as well as a member of the CCWD board. We offer a great deal of information about this controversial issue that you won’t get from any other source. I don’t think you can understand this issue without reading this discussion:
https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1509/
Along with the thanks from our equally cheery readers, I was copied on a dyspeptic message from one citizen to the entire CCWD board:
So Folks…......scroll to the bottom and read Barry Parr’s total misrepresentation of the infamous late night planning commission meeting.
Is he pining for discussion on his blog?
How sad!
Yikes. More on my misrepresentations (although nothing on my sadness) in a moment, because you’re going to get to see the entire exchange. Normally, I don’t forward private email willy-nilly, let alone publish it. But this was copied to the entire CCWD board (and others), so it’s a public document, both literally and legally.
Here’s where it gets fun. My request for clarification ("What did I misrepresent?" was the entire message) prompted an angry, angry response from James Larimer, PhD., a member of the CCWD board. He copied his message to the other members of the board. Unless I’m mistaken, that makes it not only a public document, but a (technical) violation of California’s open meeting law. I made a point of replying to him alone, and he copied his reply to the board yet again. Here’s the part that took me aback:
Finally, you infer that a Coastal Commission staffer, who was heavy lobbied by Lansing, is the Coastal Commission.
This kind of reporting of public events pretending to be news or objective commentary is at best yellow journalism. The apparent motivation for your editorial comments make it look more like double speak out of an Orwellian novel, intent to achieve a political goal and not designed to inform the debate.
I think he meant "imply", not "infer", but he’s right about one thing. I confused the Coastal Commission staff with the Commission itself. They use the same letterhead, but they’re not the same thing. I feel pretty sheepish about getting that wrong.
I was surprised by the tone of Dr. Larimer’s letter because he always seems so cheerful and avuncular in his opinion pieces in the Review about all the great stuff we’re not getting because our developments aren’t big enough (last month, last year and even earlier).
But mostly, Dr. Larimer’s letter left me baffled rather than sheepish. It was mainly a recitation of good stuff I’d neglected to say about the CCWD’s pipeline application. Fair enough, I suppose. But, as far as I can tell, I’ve never written anything about the pipeline—positive or negative. As for "reporting of public events pretending to be news or objective commentary", the offending passage in our newsletter accurately described the link as a Letter to the editor from a former planning commissioner. If you followed the link, you’d see the headline began "Letter:" and the story was tagged "Letter to the editor" in the same bright green we use for press releases. Dr. Larimer’s accusation of Orwellian double speak seems unintentionally ironic.
If you read all the comments on Sofia Freer’s letter to the editor, and I recommend you do, you’ll see that Dr. Larimer posted four of eighteen comments on the letter, and I posted ... um ... none.
Personally, I find the vicious, behind-the-scenes name-calling exemplified by Dr. Larimer’s email to be the single most corrosive force in the Coastside community. That he felt the need to show it off to his friends feels like the behavior of a schoolyard bully.
But, Dr. Larimer seems to have a thing about Coastsider. Recently, on the Review’s website, he called it "Nimby blog". If it were a girl, I’d say he had a secret crush on Coastsider.
I definitely have a point of view, although it’s a lot more moderate than Dr. Larimer wants you to think. Take a look at my treatment of Don Bacon’s Smart Growth letter. He submitted it to Town Hall and I promoted it to a main-page story, and it is still in our Top Stories list. In the comments, I pretty much agreed with half of it. But I also questioned him about some areas where I thought he had diverged from Smart Growth philosophy.
But the most important thing to remember, as I reminded Dr. Larimer, is that everyone has equal standing in Coastsider comments. No one, including me, gets favored treatment. This is in contrast to the Review, where Clay and Deb won’t mix it up with you in the comments. No one is edited here, unless they’re not being civil. So please click the link below, read the emails, and add your comments. I promise not to distort them, unless of course I think you’re wrong. (That was a joke, Jim.)
Coastsider: Orwellian or Utopian? Sandbag or sandbox? Nimby blog or friendly frog?
You tell me.
NOTE: The distribution lists have been edited to remove email address.
From: Barry Parr
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 12:36 PM
To:
Subject: Coastsider Newsletter
This has been a busy couple of months for Coastsider, and we’ve made some major improvements to the site.
The biggest one is that we completely upgraded our content management system in August. This puts us in a position to improve the site faster in the future, and increases our reliability.
Our first big improvement is TOWN HALL. Town Hall is a discussion forum that is integrated with the Coastsider. Town Hall adds two important features to Coastsider: any user can create a topic on Town Hall, and any user can reply to a Town Hall topic, without prior review. This should allow more spontaneous conversation. Coastsider members have automatic access to Town Hall when they are logged in to the site. Any Coastsider user can read the postings on the site. If you want access to posting, be sure you are using your full name as your screen name and reply to this message and tell us you want posting access to Town Hall.
https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1527/
The next big step is that we are now offering STREAMED CLIPS OF LOCAL BOARD MEETINGS. We’ve done it from time to time in the past, but we plan to make publish even more clips of the newsworthy portions of meetings, usually the same night or the next day. We have put together a direct-to-disk recording system to do this and will be working out the kinks over the next few weeks. Try out our first nearly-live recording of the HMB City Council and tell us what you think:
https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1528/
Finally, the hottest story on Coastsider right now is letter from a former planning commissioner about the HMB Planning Commission meeting which APPROVED THE NEW CCWD PIPELINE AGAINST THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE COASTAL COMMISSION. There’s some excellent discussion that includes one of the planning commissioners as well as a member of the CCWD board. We offer a great deal of information about this controversial issue that you won’t get from any other source. I don’t think you can understand this issue without reading this discussion:
https://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/1509/
Barry Parr
Editor & Publisher, Coastsider
————————————————————————————————
From: Ascher, Mary
To: Ed Schmidt, Everett Ascher, James Larimer, Chris Mickelsen, Bob Feldman, Ken Coverdell
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Sep 25, 2006 2:30 PM
Subject: FW: Coastsider Newslette
So Folks…......scroll to the bottom and read Barry Parr’s total misrepresentation of the infamous late night planning commission meeting.
Is he pining for discussion on his blog?
How sad!
Mary
————————————————————————————————
From: Barry Parr
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 3:56 PM
To: Ascher, Mary
Subject: Re: FW: Coastsider Newsletter
What did I misrepresent?
bp
————————————————————————————————
From: James Larimer
To: Barry Parr
Cc: Ed Schmidt, Everett Ascher, James Larimer, Chris Mickelsen, Bob Feldman, Ken Coverdell, Mary Ascher
Date: Sep 25, 2006 8:23 PM
Subject: Re: Barrry’s Response…....and mine…....
Barry-
Your claim " . . . the HMB Planning Commission meeting which APPROVED THE NEW CCWD PIPELINE AGAINST THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE COASTAL COMMISSION . .." is a good example of your distorted reporting on several levels.
You fail to mention that 5 out of seven HMB Planning Commissioners who saw all of the correspondence or had access to it, voted to grant the CDP. You fail to mention that when the County Planning Commission reviewed many of the same materials, that they unanimously voted to approve a CDP. You failed to mention that the professional planners who are charged with knowing the governing local, state, and federal procedures and laws recommended approval. And you failed to mention that the Director of Planning of the City of Half Moon Bay repeatedly told Kevin Lansing that his interpretations of the procedures and regulations were incorrect.
You also failed to mention that Kevin Lansing, who sits as a member of the planning commission, lobbied several state and federal agencies to find cause to delay or deny the permit. Do you think it is ethical for someone so adamantly opposed to an action to oppose it behind the scene and then sit in judgment too? His correspondence was not mentioned in your report and his adamant intension to prevent the CDP from being granted was also something you failed to mention.
Finally, you infer that a Coastal Commission staffer, who was heavy lobbied by Lansing, is the Coastal Commission.
This kind of reporting of public events pretending to be news or objective commentary is at best yellow journalism. The apparent motivation for your editorial comments make it look more like double speak out of an Orwellian novel, intent to achieve a political goal and not designed to inform the debate.
I suspect that is what Mary is complaining to you about. If that is her complaint, add my complaint to hers.
If you want your website to be a place for discussion and dialog, objectivity and balance would help a lot. I see very little balance or objectivity there now with your occasional sandbagging of the issues and the speakers with statements like your comments quoted above and copied below. A valid argument does not need these advantages and biases to be seen as correct.
Public discussion and debate can help people understand differing perspectives on important issues before us, but it must be fair and balanced if any good is to come of it.
Jim
James Larimer, Ph.D.
ImageMetrics, LLC
569 Alto Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
————————————————————————————————
From: Barry Parr
To: James
Date: Sep 25, 2006 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Barrry’s Response…....and mine…....
Jim:
You’re right: "against the recommendation of Coastal Commission staff" would have been more accurate. If it were online, I’d post a correction. But I don’t think this warrants a second email.
As for the rest of your email, keep in mind that it’s a headline, and not a news story. It’s also pointing to a letter to the editor, not a news story, as was is made clear in the paragraph quoted. The letter was also labeled as such in the title, with a bright green label, and in a prefatory note. It could hardly have been less Orwellian.
I found Sofia’s and Kevin’s descriptions of the meeting and their reasoning helpful in understanding the dispute, but I never suggested it was the complete picture. I believe it’s necessary, but not sufficient, for understanding the dispute.
You’re welcome add your voice to the conversation, as you have already. Your opinions get the same treatment as Kevin’s and Jack’s. Or mine, for that matter. Which is the reason your charge of "sandbagging" baffles me.
bp
————————————————————————————————
From: James Larimer
To: Barry Parr
Cc: Mary Ascher, Ed Schmidt, Everett Ascher, James Larimer, Chris Mickelsen, Bob Feldman, Ken Coverdell
Date: Sep 26, 2006 9:08 AM
Subject: Re: Barrry’s Response…....and mine…....
Barry-
Your vision is so clouded by your opinions and biases that you are unable to see the impropriety in your commentary. The entire episode has simply ignored a vast set of actions, facts and procedural details that paint a very different story. Fairness and balance would at least suggest mentioning them and not ignoring them entirely. You have taken Lansing’s position without questioning the facts or his behind the scenes efforts to prevent the permit from being granted and at the same time let him and others imply that the CCWD Board had done likewise, which is untrue.
Sandbagging refers to biased editorial commentary designed to undercut arguments and the people who make them by withholding important facts and details.
Here is a definition from Wikipedia: " . . . "sandbagging" is also regularly used in law to refer to the process of concealing winning arguments for as long as possible, . . . " To me it is an apt description of your comments and behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbag
Jim
James Larimer, Ph.D.
ImageMetrics, LLC
569 Alto Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
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