Monday, October 27, 2008

Hey, WCPO! Tell the truth about Jeff Berding and Issue 8!

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Photo courtesy of here.

Mr. Morford

I just watched WCPO’s I-Team coverage of Issue 8, and the report failed to include key pieces of information—depicting an incomplete and erroneous picture of the campaign for Proportional Representation.  I am writing this letter, therefore, to request an immediate correction and an update both online and on television.

Firstly, Hagit Limor continuously raised the question about why an “out-of-state” group would be concerned with “local elections.” In fact, this theme was so central to the story, she bantered on the topic with news anchors after the produced piece aired.

Not once did Limor or WCPO mention that this initiative was spearheaded by the Cincinnati NAACP—put onto the ballot with the hard work of local volunteers trying to improve their community.  So to suggest this issue is the project of an out-of-state group not linked with local elections totally ignores the hard work of the local NAACP and its local partners.

Secondly, since the piece presented itself as “investigative reporting,” I would think that a small amount of investigating should be appropriate.  For example, Limor highlighted the salary that a non-profit has donated to pay for a full time campaign coordinator.  As the local advocates for Issue 8 have regular jobs that do not allow for the kind of flex-time given well-connected people like Jeff Berding, it only made sense to reach out to a national non-profit with similar goals.

But here is the point:  In tonight’s coverage, Limor showcased the recent campaign finance report from the opposition, showing they have only raised $1,200.  This is disingenuous at best, demonstrated by the billboards the opponents have erected all around town.  These billboards clearly cost in excess of $1,200, they were not listed on the expenditure report, and they have been visible around town for several weeks.

A more interesting story would be how the opposition has manipulated reporting deadlines to hide their contributions.  For example, I know of at least one billboard erected prior to October 12th (and I have an email to a local politician to time-stamp the fact), yet nothing exists about this expense on their report?  How can this be?

WCPO has been complicit in manipulating this issue in favor of one side over another.  This recent report did so by neglecting key facts and failing to investigate obvious discrepancies.  I hope WCPO does the right thing, issuing an immediate correction and update.

Respectfully,

[The Dean of Cincinnati]

cc:  Bill Fee, General Manger and Vice President
Hagit Limor, Reporter
Christopher Smitherman, President, Cincinnati NAACP

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Rob Richie says:
28 Oct 2008  at  05:12 am | #

I’m director of FairVote, the organization that Hagit Limor plays up so ominously in her news story. I should note that Ms. Limor was given all of the following information, but chose not to reference it.

In 1992, I helped co-found FairVote with Matthew Cossolotto and Cincinnati’s own Bill Collins—the three of us organized our founding conference in Cincinnati in June 1992. That founding conference took place right in the offices of the Charter Committee. We were thrilled to have former mayor Theodore Berry as our opening speaker, in which he gave a typically inspirational appeal to work for PR in Cincinnati and across the country.

One-third of our initial board was from Cincinnati, and over the years two additional board members were from Cincinnati, current city councilwoman Roxanne Qualls and former vice-mayor Marian Spencer. Our advisory committee has included State Representative Tyrone K. Yates and former governor John Gilligan.

So we’re proud to be working with the Cincinnati NAACP and an incredible collection of local public interest groups supporting Issue 8. Meanwhile, the opposition is centered in City Hall, with certain council members apparently willing to say anything that might maintain the status quo—making a set of claims that are almost completely untrue. The Cincinnati media could do a story in which it really looked at opposition claims, but generally it has failed to do - -despite a good set of information available to them at http://www.8isgreat.org

Still,I think the truth will win out anyway on November 4th.

Nate Livingston says:
28 Oct 2008  at  08:41 am | #

Do you guys really want the I-Team, or anyone else, investigating the groups and individuals pushing PR? I don’t think so. You can’t want anyone to do a real examination which raises all of the serious questions. Let’s not go there. Everyone should just chill and deal with the issue itself.

says:
28 Oct 2008  at  02:32 pm | #

We’re not scared of the I-team. It’s more like the F-team and we have nothing to hide. WCPO gets an F for failing to actually cover what PR is and how it works. Their job is to inform the public about their choices this November, not to spin the issue and misrepresent who the people are that have been pushing for PR for a long time.

WCPO better shape up with their election coverage or they’re going to start getting a massive amount of complaints to pull their FCC license. They use our public airwaves and have a responsibility to serve the public interest. They have a bad record of biased election coverage, excluding candidates that have achieved ballot status and they’ve been busted airing corporate propaganda disguised as news. If we see another BS report like this we’re going to make an example out of them.

Rob Richie says:
28 Oct 2008  at  02:49 pm | #

Nate has a point about how it would be great to have some real focus on the issue itself these next 7 days. I trust folks are cchecking out http://www.8isgreat.org - lots of good solid info there.

says:
28 Oct 2008  at  03:14 pm | #

This just in:

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 9:41 AM, Limor, Hagit <HLimor@wcpo.com> wrote:

Hi, Bob,
I’d imagine former mayor Bobbie Sterne’s group would challenge the NAACP as spearheading anything, seeing as how her group has done all the brochures and pamphlets mailed and handed out on this. The NAACP has done nothing but offered Christopher Smitherman for our original story (but not for any debate on the issue or any public forum), which I did tell people to watch at the end of last night’s brief report. Keep in mind, the original report including the NAACP was almost 6 minutes long. Last night’s story was a brief 1:45 or 2:00.
I also did say that the folks fighting Issue 8 had not filed all their expenses but that would be upcoming in the next report. (There are various filing deadlines for campaign expenses.)
I’m not responding to this email as it’s addressed to you.

Hagit

says:
28 Oct 2008  at  03:14 pm | #

My response:

Mr. Morford,

I guess I will respond to you, too—as that is how Ms. Limor framed her response below.  (I don’t know if she sent you a copy.)

Ms. Limor wrote:  “I’d imagine former mayor Bobbie Sterne’s group would challenge the NAACP as spearheading anything, seeing as how her group has done all the brochures and pamphlets mailed and handed out on this.”

The Cincinnati NAACP led the effort to get this on the ballot.  That fact alone indicates the groundwork that group of local volunteers set in place to support Issue 8.  Mr. Smitherman, additionally, has sent many statements out to his email list advocating for Issue 8, and I presume these are also sent to local media.  If not, I am happy to provide them should Ms. Limor find she is not included on that list.

Ms. Limor wrote:  “The NAACP has done nothing but offered Christopher Smitherman for our original story (but not for any debate on the issue or any public forum)...”

Christopher Smitherman has debated Jeff Berding extensively on WVXU.  As the election is not till next week there may be more opportunities.  But my complaint did not focus on that. Still, Ms. Limor continues to be incorrect in her claims.

Ms. Limor wrote:  “Last night’s story was a brief 1:45 or 2:00.”

I’m sorry I did not see the original report.  I saw last night’s report, and that is the report that concerns this inquiry.  As a general rule, I do not think one should do an inadequate job on one night due to doing a better job at some prior time.

Ms. Limor’s report in question characterized the supporters as out-of-state people interfering with local elections and spending lots of money, while depicting the opposition as local people with a shoestring budget.

In actuality, the support for Issue 8 comes from a broad coalition of local people on a shoe string budget, fighting against those who will likely spend more in campaign material.  The existence of billboards across town, while left off the finance report, substantiates the claim.

Respectfully,

[The Dean of Cincinnati]

cc:  Christopher Smitherman, NAACP

anon says:
28 Oct 2008  at  10:42 pm | #

Everyone does know that Channel 9 has the most politically biased reporting - ever.  This is the same “news” organization that killed the story about now Judge Michael Barrett and his concealing the income of a famous football player to avoid child support in violation of law and the code of professional responsibilities for attorneys. Quinlivan spent months verifying every fact - and the news director said they weren’t going to ruin a man’s career for one mistake.

I’ve never seen them exercise that kind of news suppressing decisions when others careers are on the line.

I refuse to watch them anymore - I hope others follow suit

says:
29 Oct 2008  at  09:17 am | #

Dean!

You seem desperate trying to blame Channel 9 for the failure of PR in Cincinnati. You give Cincinnati TV stations too much credit.

You and Jeffre have failed to see the divisiveness in PR because of your convictions and shortsightedness. You have pushed PR without addressing the skepticism of the public for political interests. You could have stayed with the more honest and apparent qualities of a pure district system that was the objective of the black leadership in recent years instead of changing horses.

You all got greedy in the hopes of having a manipulative PR system that you thought might give you an edge instead of reflecting the democratic principles upon which this country claims to be built.

Now that you will have lost the PR scam, what will you do to make this local system be more democratic?

says:
29 Oct 2008  at  10:46 am | #

dieterschmied, What are you talking about? PR hasn’t failed and just because the same people that pushed the jail tax are against it doesn’t mean it will fail. PR worked fine for 30 years and made our city ranked as one of the best governed in the nation. It worked too well and was only gotten rid of because it was going to allow the first Black Mayor (Ted Berry) to be elected. It still works in Cambridge just fine too.

You and Jeffre have failed to see the divisiveness in PR because of your convictions and shortsightedness.

PR gives everybody representation and districts (which doesn’t have enough support to get on the ballot) literally divides up our community and has a bad history in this city.

You all got greedy in the hopes of having a manipulative PR system that you thought might give you an edge instead of reflecting the democratic principles upon which this country claims to be built.

Go read the history of PR in this country, there’s plenty of it. It worked very well, too well for some. It was racism in this city and other cities that caused people to get rid of it and you have the nerve to call us greedy. This country was founded on slavery and women were property. We still have the undemocratic electoral college and two corrupt parties that are destroying the country.

You’re the one that sounds desperate. Why don’t you get off of your ass and put it on the ballot like we did? Why don’t you start by trying to make the current district systems that we have more fair. Gerrymandering is a serious problem. There are districts that look like squiggly lines etc. The way districts are now it allows greedy politicians to recreate districts in their own best interest. Stop hijacking every PR thread with your BS about districts. Districts aren’t on the ballot.

says:
30 Oct 2008  at  01:36 am | #

Justin!

The PR issue is dead but you won’t let it rest in peace. PR has as much of a chance in passing as Nader has in winning next Tuesday.

Convictions are a greater threat to truth than ignorance - Nietzsche

Why are you still crying gerrymander? Considering what it would take to implement PR if it could actually pass, assuring that districts would not be gerrymandered is a freebie.

says:
31 Oct 2008  at  07:11 pm | #

dieterschmied!

I think your crystal ball is cloudy. PR has a lot of support, just not from the status quo that pushed the jail tax.

You keep going on about districts even though nobodies done the hard work of getting it on the ballot. A major problem with the current district system is gerrymandering, it’s a real problem don’t you think? How can we deal what that issue?

says:
01 Nov 2008  at  02:12 pm | #

Justin!

I have given an explanation many times of how gerrymandering can be dealt with.

There are two ways, both of which allow for computer generated districts. The easiest to understand is as follows:

Consider the case where we would want just two districts ( easy, I know two is not enough). In the case of two districts, a true north line is drawn by the computer so that fifty percent of the voters are one the east side and fifty percent on the west side. Now if there is a problem understanding this so far, then we have to stop.

The voters are identified from the voter rolls of registered voters that are at the board of elections. Every voter has an address. any one of the many map programs can identify the address location on their maps precisely. The map program can place the true north line precisely. There is absolutely no political input or manipulation. It can be instantaneous, so as soon as a new voter registers, the line adjusts until the cutoff time.

Now if we want four districts, the computer splits the two aforementioned districts using the perpendicular-to-true-north line or a true east/west line.

Using this method we can have 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 .... districts.

If you have to have 7 or 9 or some uneven number of districts, then the same concept is used but a different algorithm is used, but again, there is no political input.

Now I know that some petty ass is going to say that the line might go through my neighborhood or my neighbor hood is combined with another neighborhood. Heaven forbid that Hyde Park would have to go to a district meeting with Evanston, but realize that neighborhood have no legal standing in the city charter and that most of these neighborhoods have elitist and racial baggage, that should not be considered.

Justin, do you agree of disagree that this is a viable way? If not, why not?

says:
01 Nov 2008  at  03:21 pm | #

dieterschmied, the question is, do other people that support districts support this plan? As I have said, I don’t think that there is any magic bullet solution and that we should have everything on the table, but the bottom line is I don’t believe that there is a consensus among district supporters about what the best way to carve up the proposed districts should be. This should be discussed with other district proponents.

I don’t think PR will hurt any efforts towards coming up with a plan or coalition for districts. You all can do the samething that we’ve done to give people a choice on PR. I’d like to see an effort to stop the type of gerrymandering that we see with current districts. I don’t know if your plan is the best way to deal with it or not. Maybe after the election you should right a blog post about your plan and try to see if you can get other district supporters on board and put it on the ballot.

Until then, I don’t see any reason to continue to talk about a plan for districts that may never be an option for people to choose.

says:
01 Nov 2008  at  10:43 pm | #

Justin!

I don’t know many people that support anything different. Years ago a question was presented for a vote on Cincinnati method of elections and I polled every council member’s office as to how many people had called their offices on the subject. There was not one inquiry!

Districts are rejected by people such as Sterne and there main objections are gerrymandering and parochialism, what ever that is. It is hard to introduce anything different in Cincinnati because there is little, if any, intelligent discussion beyond an introductory statement. There are few like yourself who might present a topic worth considering. In this case, you picked a solution that isn’t the best, but districts or PR, by itself, will not solve Cincinnati’s problems. This is a problem with democracy. Few can come up with the answers but then they have to convince the herd and it isn’t really worth it.

There is a good reason to continue to discuss it. I am looking for reasons for not accepting districts. And discussions are observed by some in the herd and who knows what will get other to think.

Yes on 8 says:
02 Nov 2008  at  04:55 pm | #

Districts is not the issue, but if it were........ the people running for office under districts could still be elected by PR. Districts could be set up with an at-large winner take all system or a PR system.

VOTE YES ON 8!!!!

says:
02 Nov 2008  at  08:51 pm | #

Yes on 8!

Yes they probably can, but why complicate the system any more than it has to be. In other words would the complications of PR be justified?

I have already voted no.

says:
03 Nov 2008  at  05:14 am | #

Ranking your candidates isn’t complicated, carving up districts fairly can be though.

Jack says:
03 Nov 2008  at  05:49 am | #

PR gives voters the power to determine their representation in every election. Districts gives district-makers the power to determine representation once every ten years.

I’ll stick with the voters. Yes on 8!

says:
03 Nov 2008  at  09:55 am | #

Justin!

Please tell me what specifically is unfair about the forming of districts in the manner that I described in #12 above.

And/or tell me how it is complicated.

says:
03 Nov 2008  at  02:11 pm | #

Jack says:
03 Nov 2008 at 05:49 am | #

PR gives voters the power to determine their representation in every election. Districts gives district-makers the power to determine representation once every ten years.

I’ll stick with the voters. Yes on 8!

Could you explain your statement?

Jack says:
06 Nov 2008  at  08:51 am | #

Single-member district elections are rarely very close. Open seats can be contested and once in a blue moon an incumbent loses. So voters rarely are in a position to determine their representation, and those put in the minority in their district by mapmakers (whoever those mapmakers are) are out of luck.

PR allows voters to shape their constituencies and join with like-minded voters to win representation in EVERY election. But Cincinnati of course has voted narrowly to keep at-large election after last-minute smears by an opposition election founded nearly entirely on lies about things like costs of implementing PR. Sad to see.

says:
06 Nov 2008  at  12:51 pm | #

Ref. 21 Jack:

Just what is the basis for your first paragraph? That tired conclusion is just another myth by someone who can’t think beyond the box.

The second paragraph is about as exciting as the first.

says:
06 Nov 2008  at  12:59 pm | #

dieterschmied, that’s not usually how districts are formed. Like I said, you don’t need to try to sell me on it. You need to sell Jeff Berding and people that are working on putting a district system before the public soon. I know that Nate Livingston has a plan for districts that he thinks is fair. As I said before, get together with other district supporters and put the best version before the public for a vote.

Jack says:
06 Nov 2008  at  03:15 pm | #

Bottom-line—the way district lines determine the outcome of most elections—htere will be lots of votesr in a minority that will never have a chance to elect anyone as long as they live in that district. And the voters in the majority in the majority will end up with someone who they might have voted for the first time and like well enough, but have no chance to displace no matter what.

Check around at how districts work. This isn’t theory, it’s practice. And the practice of districts is almost no competitive elections.

says:
06 Nov 2008  at  08:03 pm | #

Justin!

I dropped a line to Berding and he said he would send out meeting information.

I did the same thing when DeWine and company were discussing strong mayor; I got notification of one meeting and that was canceled. Let’s hope it different this time.

says:
06 Nov 2008  at  08:09 pm | #

Jack!

Huh?

So long as the districts are generated by computer and not political parties, I don’t see your theoretical problems occurring.

You do know that it be districts that just elected a president.

Jack says:
07 Nov 2008  at  10:07 am | #

You’re absolutely wrong that generating districts by computer will create competition. Heck, state lines aren’t gerrymandered, and low and behold, most states weren’t competitive even with two very well-financed, well-known candidates.

says:
07 Nov 2008  at  12:15 pm | #

dieterschmied, good luck.

says:
07 Nov 2008  at  05:57 pm | #

Hey Jack!

Who do you think drew those boundaries, the Indians?

says:
07 Nov 2008  at  06:06 pm | #

Justin!

There are bigger issues that the election process in this town. While the process may give more control to the people or at least make the people feel they have more control, there are many more problems that need to be addressed.

For instance, the people have to control the government for real. The idea of immunity needs to be addressed. The individual need to be allowed to hold government responsible for their actions and inaction. Wealth disparity is an even bigger problem. Government needs to be needed by the collective.

says:
07 Nov 2008  at  07:50 pm | #

dieterschmied!

So what are you going to do about it?