Blame the problem, not the press

Once again — or twice again or thrice again — intelligent public officials in Southwest Florida obliged by duty and law to protect public interests have adopted a classic knee-jerk response to problems, and blamed “the media.”

Either that or they’ve assumed that “the media,” per se, is an unwarranted intruder, a creature inimical to their interests (which are supposed to be public interests). Sometimes, apparently, they think that “the media” causes problems, not the people or events “the media” describe when it reports those problems.

For example, when I called somebody in Collier County to ask how many marriage licenses had been issued in the previous year, I got this initial response: “I don’t know if I can give out that information to the public.”

In Lee County, when Dr. Judith Hartner, director of the health department, issued a statement about swine flu to be distributed to schools and parents, she began this way: “With continued media attention about H1N1 (swine) flu and vaccines, the Lee County Health Department would like to keep you informed about area efforts to keep your family healthy.”

Admirable as her reaching out is, swine flu has nothing to do with “continued media attention.” It’s there. And without “continued media attention” it would still be there, only the public would be a lot less aware of the dangers and options.

Here’s another, more suspect example taken from a series of recent e-mails between Gary McAlpin, Collier County’s coastal projects manager and several employees, including a parks and recreation official named Murdo Smith.

They were talking about public property on the beach in front of The Ritz-Carlton Naples, where Ed Staros is vice president and general manager. Even though state department of environmental protection officials surveyed the beach and defined the erosion control line (an average mean high tide line) for Mr. Staros and county officials back in May — they conclusively determined that public property is everything west of that line — a new and apparently misleading sign had been put back up last week.

That wasn’t the only problem. The other problem was Mr. McAlpin’s attitude about the public’s right to know, and his and Mr. Smith’s willingness to copy Mr. Staros, who is not in the employ of the public interest, but of the profitinspired Ritz-Carlton Resorts, in each of several e-mails.

Here’s what Mr. McAlpin (McAlpin@ colliergov.net) wrote on Nov. 5 at 8:39 a.m., to Mr. Smith and Mr. Staros, as well as two other county officials: “Murdo, I thought we agreed to changed (sic) the language from “Public Beach Ends Here” to “Vanderbilt Beach Ends Here” to solve this problem. Let me know. We need to have a sign up to support the Ritz. I know we might be splitting hairs but we are trying to walk a tight line to avoid unneeded press.” press.”

The job of the press, though, is to report abuses, as Florida Weekly did in May after Ritz officials moved their chairs and umbrellas onto portions of the public beach and evicted people using it. So as a public official, Mr. McAlpin ought to embrace the press, since he represents public interests, not private ones.

Whenever you come across a media blamer or a media shirker, you’ve stumbled on somebody who holds a significant measure of contempt for the ability and the right of Americans to A) gain access to information; B) think for themselves; and C) make their own decisions. (Either that or you’ve outed a con artist and schemer.)

But the degree to which we Americans are right in our decisions — always, sometimes or rarely; 100 percent of the time, 50 percent of the time or 5 percent of the time — isn’t the point. The point is this: We have the right to choose.

That’s where the media comes in, and where public records laws become important. And it’s the reason every single public official, from a trash collector or telephone receptionist to a city or county manager to a senator or a governor should do everything he can, or she can, to tell reporters exactly what’s happening — especially when they ask.

That happened when I called Charlotte County officials to ask about a sometimes convoluted-seeming pension plan. A human resources analyst for the county named Deborah Arnold spent 45 minutes on the telephone educating me. Why? Because it’s in the public interest, especially if I’m going to write about her subject.

The media, with its opportunity and responsibility to ask questions of those who use power and public money in our interests, is the lifeblood of the American system. It will lay out what’s been said and done, more or less, so people can quickly gain a sense of events, and decide for themselves what to do.

I’m not the only one to think so.

“To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs by reason and humanity over error and oppression,” said James Madison, our fourth president. Mr. Madison is popularly held up as the author of the First Amendment.

Don’t like that one? Try this thought, from Warren Buffett, popularly held up as a preeminent American businessman: “The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. To a degree, people read the press to inform themselves — and the better the teacher, the better the student body.”

I’ve learned in my 16-year reporting career, which I took up at the ripe old age of 40, that most people in government can be trusted to do the right thing, and to work hard, and to care about the public good. And most people in government understand that “the media” will actually help the system we all depend on.

The government, after all, is just Tom, Dick, Harry and Helen, and so is the media. They’re us, and we are them. We’re on the same side — the American side, the Florida side, the side of truth, justice and the American dream.

I use that language playfully, but I believe it. I hope our public officials do, too. 