SUMMARY: what follows is the text of an open letter from me to Mark Winkler, publisher of the Desert Sun. In it, I address the unwillingness or inability of his newspaper to bear the slightest accent of criticism or reproof. I also address the extent to which the corporate culture of the desert sun appears to be driven by personal antipathies. Moreover, at a time when the mainstream media are embracing an ethic of transparency and responsiveness to differences of opinion, the desert sun has been marching steadfastly in the opposite direction, embracing a Fox News ethic of “cutting off the microphone,” so to speak of any critic or dissenter. When I had the effrontery to express views differing from those of the Desert Sun’s staff, I was blacklisted from either commenting on articles the Desert Sun or participating in the Desert Sun’s “You’ve Got Issues” Facebook group. I’ve written to the publisher of the Desert Sun because the buck has to stop somewhere; I’ll post in this blog any response I might actually get from a newspaper that has never felt the need for either an ombudsman or a public editor.
Mark Winkler
THE Desert Sun
750 North Gene Autry Trail
Palm Springs, CA 92262
RE: AN OPEN LETTER CONCERNING THE DESERT SUN’S UNWILLINGNESS TO TOLERATE DIFFERING VIEWS AND OPINIONS; BLACKLISTING OF DISSENTERS
Daar Mr. Winkler:
At a time when increasing numbers of mainstream media outlets are adopting a culture of responsive transparency to reader concerns and expressions of differing views and opinions, The Desert Sun appears to be marching steadfastly in the opposite direction. Apparently, your so-called community conversations staff have preferred to take instruction from Fox News, and to suppress expressions of opinion, particularly from the undersigned, that they appear to find uncongenial.
More disturbing even than The Desert Sun’s apparent inability to bear the slightest accent of disagreement or reproof is the almost aggressively defensive posture of the newspaper when it is caught out in grave and serious error.
Your newspaper’s inability to bear the accent of criticism or reproof has been expressed in an apparent decision from one or more members of your staff to disable the undersigned’s ability to comment on any of your articles, and in the undersigned’s exclusion and blocking from the so-called “You’ve Got Issues” Facebook group which The Desert Sun apparently regards as being an adequate substitute for having either an ombudsman or a public editor. In short, the undersigned has been effectively blacklisted. Because your newspaper has neither a public editor nor an ombudsman, the undersigned addresses his correspondence directly to you, the accountable manager with whom the buck must stop.
A couple of examples of The Desert Sun’s unwillingness to tolerate the expression of differing or alternative views will suffice.
THE UNDERSIGNED’S EXPRESSION OF CONCERN RESPECTING HIGH SCHOOL FOORBALL COVERAGE
Recently, the undersigned, commenting in The Desert Sun’s much vaunted “You’ve Got Issues” Facebook group, expressed concerns about the tone and amount of Desert Sun coverage of local high school football. Given the tone and tenor of the national conversation about high school football and the social paradigms it enables, to say nothing of the serious medical consequences it can, and frequently does, and gender, my expression of concern was well within the national mainstream of discussion.
But James Folmer, your “Community Conversations Editor,” was having none of it. With all of the zealous vigor of orthodoxy stamping out heresy, Mr. Folmer responded to the undersigned that high school football was a “big deal” in the Coachella Valley, and that notwithstanding any expressions of concern from the undersigned or others, The Desert Sun would continue to treat high school football as a “big deal.”
The tone of Mr. Folmer’s comments was such as to indicate to the undersigned that he was absolutely unwilling and unprepared to acknowledge even the slightest degree of merit to the undersigned’s concerns. (Though Mr. Folmer appears not merely indifferent, but hostile, to the undersigned’s concerns, it is worth noting that the cover story of the September 29, 2014 number of Time magazine deals with the football-related death of 16-year-old Chad Stover, of Tipton, Missouri, and showcased the very real and rising concern among parents, physicians, and political leaders about the medical risks associated with the “big deal” that The Desert Sun apparently considers high school football to be.)
The undersigned also expressed concern that The Desert Sun’s apparently uncritical and even breathless coverage of high school football tended to shortchange the achievements of high school students whose talents are not expressed on the gridiron, and that such coverage also tends to reinforce often dysfunctional social paradigms in our secondary education system. The undersigned also noted that in secondary school social paradigms such as those Mr. Folmer apparently considers normative and optimal, varsity football players and cheerleaders often enjoy a kind of tacit permission to engage in transgressive behaviors which would call down a world of hurt and punishment on students outside the relatively small, select circle of the varsity football program. Again, Mr. Folmer was having none of it.
THE “GENERAL ASSEMBLY” MISNOMERS
The other major issue with respect to which your staff and of the undersigned have found themselves in disagreement is the fairly serious blunder The Desert Sun made recently when your interactive media staffer, Rob Hopwood, constructed an interactive feature designed to show which candidates were seeking office in any given election. Mr. Hopwood, who had worked for Gannett in North Carolina before relocating to California six years ago, referred to our California Legislature as the General Assembly (as it is in North Carolina). The undersigned called Hopwood’s attention to the error. When Hopwood acknowledged that he had been resident in California for six years prior to constructing the interactive display, the undersigned expressed some degree of surprise that so much time would pass without Hopwood acquainting himself with California’s public institutions of self-government. Though Hopwood corrected the error, he felt it necessary to cast himself as some kind of victim, and quickly personalized the issue.
This is not the first time that The Desert Sun has erroneously referred to our state Legislature as the General Assembly. Shortly after coming to The Desert Sun, James Folmer made the same error in his self introduction column, asking “how did the General Assembly do?” Though the error is plain for all to see in the cloud and in print in back numbers of The Desert Sun, Mr. Folmer indignantly denied to the undersigned that he had ever done such a thing.
When the undersigned suggested that referring to California’s Legislature by the name of a foreign jurisdiction’s parliamentary body sent a non-recommending message about the extent to which this newspaper and its staff are engaged with and invested in this community, that was apparently the last straw. It now appears of the undersigned that a decision appears to been taken, perhaps in consultation with a number of Desert Sun staffers, to blacklist the undersigned and to exclude any of the undersigned’s expressions of opinion from any so-called community conversation of which The Desert Sun is a part
To the extent of The Desert Sun wishes to treat the undersigned is a nonperson, it is free, like Fox News or Pravda, to do so. However, the undersigned will continue to offer alternative points of view through the vehicle of the undersigned’s independent blog. Among those alternative points of view, the undersigned will not be at all hesitant to raise the issue of the extent to which The Desert Sun seems to be abandoning an emerging journalistic ethic of inclusive, responsive, responsible transparency.
If, as the undersigned sadly suspects to be the case, decision-making at The Desert Sun is being driven by personal antipathies and an unwillingness to entertain viewpoints that differ from your own, then you will have only ourselves to blame when others in the community begin to call you out for the one-sided perspective that inevitably attaches itself to a newspaper that believes itself to be the only game in town.
The undersigned trusts you will have the courtesy to look into the matters the undersigned has raised, and to tender to the undersigned a thoughtful, non-dismissive, merits-based response, addressing the issue of whether blackisting differing opinions comports with basic canons of journalistic ethics. The undersigned does not seek a personal confrontation with you; however, as the undersigned has observed hereinabove, you are the publisher, the head shot-caller; the buck does stop with you, and you, as publisher, are ultimately responsible and accountable for the corporate culture of your newspaper.
LAW OFFICES OF PAUL S. MARCHAND
/s/
By: Paul S. Marchand
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