Unmitigated hogwash

This is a reprint from October 12, 2007

I want to thank Kevin Cuneo, the Erie Times-News’s alleged “public editor,” for making it so easy for a self-appointed critic like yours truly to do my job. Cuneo’s weekly dissertations in his Sunday column purporting to exercise his role in that regard are sitting ducks.The traditional role of public editors is to represent and advocate for the readers’ points of view, not the newspaper’s. Cuneo consistently does just the opposite. Today’s column is a classic example.

Entitled “Keeping secrets almost always the worst policy,” it represents the newspaper’s point of view, not the reader’s, and should have appeared, if at all, as an editorial in the left-hand column of the editorial page, not as a personal column on the op-ed page. It underscores Cuneo’s failure to adhere to the basic tenet which should guide a public editor, namely that he or she’s supposed to be an advocate for the reader, not the newspaper. In that regard, Cuneo’s column gets an F today.

His opening sentence is equally spurious: “It's a point of pride at the Erie Times-News that the newspaper always stands in the center of the arena and fights for citizens' rights.” Unmitigated hogwash. From that self-serving and readily rebuttable statement, Cuneo segues into a petulant ad hominem attack on the Summit Township Industrial & Economic Development Authority (STIEDA).

One of the authority’s members had submitted a Letter to the Editor published last week justifiably chastising the Times-News for distorting the facts in a story and editorial on the authority’s handling of the Presque Isle Casino’s application to the township for $13.8 million from the county’s share of the casino’s multi-million dollar take.John Guerriero, the reporter who wrote the story, had erroneously reported that the authority had denied his request for a copy of the casino’s application.

In fact, in strict accordance with state law, a member of the authority told Guerriero he would have to submit the request for a copy of the application in writing.If, upon review by counsel, it were determined to be a “public record” not protected by law for proprietary or other legal reasons, a copy would be provided to the Times-News upon payment of a fee to cover reasonable administrative and copying costs. That’s exactly what ultimately happened. All on the up and up.

Among other things, the policy protects the authority and township in borderline cases against the possibility of being sued should the confidentiality of the documents sought to be released be required by law.Nevertheless, the Times-News editorialist, in a puerile hissy fit, called the authority’s behavior “outrageous (twice), wrong, galling, arrogant, exasperating,” epithets which more accurately describe the newspaper’s behavior.

The errant editorial also complained that at a previous meeting “the authority unanimously approved a policy against doing such a thing” (releasing public records without legal review).That was, in fact, a plus. It put the news media and others on notice that the authority might sometime in the future invoke what is already allowable under state law, so observers may be prepared for just such an eventuality.

The fact that the Times-News reporter was caught unawares simply demonstrates he hadn’t done his homework.Enter “public editor” Cuneo. In the Letter to the Editor of the Times-News from the chairman of the STIEDA explaining why the authority required a written request for the casino’s application, and chastising the Times-News for misrepresenting the facts, Board Chairman Brian McGowan wrote: “The written request helps STIEDA know exactly what documents are being requested, and it benefits the requester in the case of denial, so he or she can seek the remedies under the act if desired."

“Denial?” Cuneo wrote. “These are public records. How on earth could they be denied to anybody who requests them?” What Cuneo and his cohorts at the Times-News need is a seminar on the state’s public records law. They would learn, among other things, that not all “public records” meet the criteria for release to the press or anyone else. There are many which do not.

The law states, for example, that public records:

(1)“shall not mean any report, communication or other paper, the publication of which would disclose the institution, progress or result of an investigation undertaken by an agency in the performance of its official duties, except those reports filed by agencies pertaining to safety and health in industrial plants (this is known as the investigatory exception);

(2 ) it shall not include any record, document, material, exhibit, pleading, report, memorandum or other paper, access to or the publication of which is prohibited, restricted or forbidden by statute law or order or decree of court (this is known as the statutory and judicial exception);

(3) or which would operate to the prejudice or impairment of a person's reputation or personal security (this is known as the personal reputation and security exception,)

(4) or which would result in the loss by the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or commissions or State or municipal authorities of Federal funds (the jeopardy to public funds exception).Whether the state’s public records law is inadequate (It is), or whether the casino should get the requested $13.8 million (No) are not the issues here; merely whether the authority was right or wrong in acting the way it did, and whether the Times-News’s reaction and Cuneo’s broadside were inappropriate.

Clearly, under the law as it exists, the authority did exactly what it should have done. And the Times-News did what no newspaper should do: abuse the power of the press to castigate blameless public officials who were merely doing what state law authorizes them to do.In a burst of feckless magnanimity, Cuneo wrote in his column today: “The Times-News has a copy of the application document. Anyone wishing to review it can call me. It cost the newspaper $65.50, but you can see it for free.”

So there, STIEDA! I guess he told you! Guerierro’s article, Brian Oberle’s editorial (assuming he wrote it as editor of the editorial page), and Cuneo’s column symbolize the culture of arrogance and expectation of special privilege that has prevailed for decades at the Times Publishing Co. from the top down, even when I worked there more than 40 years ago.

Their wishes, however arbitrary, are not to be opposed, they are to be readily gratified, or one risks being trampled in a virtual stampede of published invective.One minor point about the letter the authority wrote to the editor pointing out the errors in both the reporter's story and the editorial. Normally, letters to the editor which are posted on the online edition of the Times-News remain on the electronic Opinion Page for several days.

But this one was removed after only one day. Petty, petty, petty. Furthermore, there's no doubt in my mind that the authority's letter would have been one of, if not the best read item in the paper that day, and should have appeared on the next day's "Most read Stories" list. But it was deliberately omitted therefrom to spare the Times-News news and editorial staff further embarrassment.