Winter Haven News Chief chose not to publish this column

Media Mess

It’s true… I read it in the papers!  How many times have you heard that or said it with all confidence?  We gladly quote the media if they favor our opinion, but vilify it if they don’t.  The media has come under scrutiny about how it covers and what it chooses to write.  Apparently there is something to it….

 I have gone through a change in my thinking about the media.  I worked for years for a newspaper and I was convinced that they worked hard and make the right decision about news coverage.  Looking at the national media I realize that this is not the case.  My association with the News Chief is only that they allow me a platform for my weekly “rants’.  But a situation points out that all reporters and editors are humans and not perfect and you can’t always “Believe what you read”.

 I give you a small simple example that has no huge impact, but illustrative, nevertheless.  Well, if you live in Lake Wales, it might be big… 

Case in point… The Mardi Gras celebration in Lake Wales last weekend.  One paper (this one) covered it with this headline in Sunday’s paper. “A sea of Lunacy (over the picture)  The story headline was “LW goes crazy as Krewes cruise for Mardi Gras.  In the story there were these quotes; “It looked to me like this was a bigger crowd than ever.  “They estimated around 60,000 people watched the parade.”  These may be biased quotes; after all they are coming from excited participants.  But the implication was that it was a wild and crazy event and the biggest ever. 

 But turn to the Ledger and their coverage.  They led with this headline…. “Lake Wales Mardi Gras Subdued”.  In the article they reported; “The daylong event drew between 20,000 and 30,000.”  They further downplayed the story by reporting it in the “East Polk” section, below the fold rather than in the main local section.  They reported that there were more arrests for underage drinking, unlicensed sale of alcohol, disorderly conduct and open container violations. 

One reporter looks at an event and sees one thing; another reporter sees something entirely different.  I don’t know who is right because I was at a Statler Brothers concert in Ocala, Florida as 60,000 or 20,000 people were in downtown Lake Wales.  The story here is that how easy it is to color a story, slant a story and even totally misrepresent a story.  Again, this is relatively unimportant in this situation but what if the story is about the future of our schools, police conduct, or anything that has a huge impact on our lives?

 The bigger story for Lake Wales is that all of our institutions worked and worked well to improve this event… and in the process it started to grow up not just grow big.  The religious community raised the question, the commission acted responsibility, the police showed their mettle and the organizers stepped up to the plate and accepted responsibility.

 Last week I wrote about the street party on Saturday night spilling across the community and more specifically on the church parking lots for those churches close to downtown.  Well it did, you can’t control all the people when it is at night, when it features alcohol.  Some will lose their common sense.  But you can control it and you can get out early Sunday morning and clean up…. And this they did.  By 8 AM the congregation saw no evidence of what happened the night before.

 The essential news here is the Lake Wales people in key areas of responsibility acted well and responsibly.  The news media (one or the other) did not.

 So the next time you say “It must be true, I saw it in the papers”, take a pause and reconsider!