City PIO alleges bias reporting on ethics complaints
I am amazed The Commercial Dispatch would throw stones at any person or organization that chooses to defend itself from the false charges of another. This principle is a basic tenant of the American legal system.
You are throwing stones with your criticism of the City of Columbus defending itself against false charges brought by this newspaper regarding the open meetings cases with the state.
Your cheap headline on Wednesday that the “City drops $16K…” is clever and likely sold papers. But it is also unfair. Any college journalism professor would label such headlines as biased and unfair. That headline was meant to inflame and entertain, both undesirable for journalists, but it was the lead story that day.
The Commercial Dispatch in its Opinion column of September 28, 2016, attempts to cast the mayor and city council as having “chutzpah” for spending money to defend claims brought by the paper itself.
In making this allegation, The Dispatch is guilty of chutzpah as well.
The very nerve of filing a legal action against someone and then complaining when that person has to spend money to defend himself! Of course, this was all very easy and cheap for The Dispatch.
Filing a complaint with the State Ethics Commission is free. Anyone can do it. After that, the complaining party may merely sit back and watch the show. That’s exactly what The Dispatch has done in the Gregory and Dispatch cases, probably in pursuit of some Press Association award. This was a free spectator event for your paper and generates headlines.
Journalists are trained to “not be the story” and instead, report fairly and accurately the facts involved. You ignore such principles and create the story and then report on it with your employees. How can readers expect unbiased coverage from such reporters that you pay?
Should the city just roll over and give up because of the cost of defending itself?
The city could have rolled over, but if the city did that, it would be responsible for permitting The Dispatch to usher in a new era of restrictions on the speech rights of the mayor and city council. Instead, the mayor and council decided to fight these cases.
If our Founding Fathers had been weak as The Dispatch suggests the city should be, no one would be allowed to defend themselves from false charges.
To The Dispatch, I say “Don’t tread on me” — and recall Ben Franklin wrote, that the rattlesnake was a good symbol for the American Spirit. Why? Ben said, “She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders.” And I say to the mayor and city council, you are right to fight and you must not give in!
To The Commercial Dispatch, Birney Imes, Peter Imes, Zach Plair and Alex Holloway, you have each week become more and more aggressive in your quest to discredit our mayor and city council.
Your stories and coverage are not fair and unbiased but go out of the way to show your negative feelings of city political leaders. You don’t even attempt to honor the basic tenants of journalism with your one-sided attacks.
If The Commercial Dispatch really wants to be fair, I would challenge you to find an independent reporter to cover these stories for you and write the headlines about these stories. But you can’t control the “spin” that way.
Joe Dillon
Public Information Officer, City of Columbus
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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