Sacramento Bee Covers the People's Vanguard of Davis

This past Sunday, January 14, 2007, the Sacramento Bee had a feature article on this blog. I thought that reporter Erika Chavez did an excellent job on this. I thought it was a good article and also a balanced article in that, they had a number statements from people that this blog has criticized in the past. I absolutely welcome that, as I want this blog to be a way to facilitate open and honest discussion for the community.

By now the vast majority of my readers have read this article:

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/107637.html

I did want to point out a couple of interesting comments in the article.

First of all, I said:

"The blog is not a tool to vindicate his wife, Greenwald said."

This point needs clarification. The purpose of this blog was to present information to the public that in my opinion and I think the opinion of others was not getting told by the local newspaper and some local officials who have a vested interest in outcomes favorable to their politics and public policy positions. Certainly, some of that revolved around issues that arose from the Human Relations Commission (where my wife served for over four years as chair) including the need for police oversight and racial profiling. But, as anyone can see by reviewing the many articles written and posted on this blog most issues and subjects covered have had nothing to do with the HRC or specifically my wife. This blog was founded to help disseminate information to the community about issues which are misreported, underreported or not reported on at all by the Davis Enterprise. This blog has focused on issues such as the lackluster as well as the biased reporting or omission by the Davis Enterprise on government malfeasance and misfeasance at both the city and county level, the aborted attempt to disband the Senior Citizens Commission, the Target and SMUD vs. PG&E election, misconduct at the District Attorney's Office, gay-bashing in the DJUSD schools etc. Those issues are what drove the creation of this blog and have built its readership over the past six months.

"Born and raised in San Luis Obispo"

As my mother pointed out, she was there when I was born and I was not born in San Luis Obispo. This is a slight correction, I probably was not that clear during the interview. I moved to San Luis Obispo with my family when I was 10 months old. I was born in Los Angeles county and lived in Santa Ana. I also briefly lived in St. Louis, Missouri.

While [Stephen] Souza supports blogs as a form of expression, "the problem is there doesn't necessarily have to be factual content," he said. "I appear to be the target of many close-to-defamatory statements. You don't have to get personal; I think that takes away from the credibility of his position, so I have personally chosen not to participate in that discussion."

The defamation charge is interesting--while I have been very critical of Souza's policies, I'm not sure any of them rise to the level of defamation if he were a private citizen, let alone a public official.

If he takes it personally that I question his positions, statements, and actions, then I say welcome to politics. I also note that he responded to the MLK thread and I hope he will continue to do so.

Chavez also interviewed Debbie Davis who had mostly kind words for this blogger.

"Our news coverage is fair and accurate"

That sounds like a Fox News self-description to me. I will point out that the very day this article was published, the People's Vanguard of Davis had an article that demonstrated that the Davis Enterprise coverage was neither fair nor accurate with regards to the police public records audit story and their failure to disclose some key information about the tipping off of interim Chief Steve Pierce to the study.

"Steven Pierce, the Davis Police Department's interim police chief since June, said Greenwald is entitled to express his opinions, whether he agrees with him or not.

But he cautions readers who would take any media, be it television, newspapers or blogs, at face value.

"It's certainly not without its own political slant," said Pierce, who said he has read the blog on several occasions. "To assume that it's neutral and without its own bias is naive and inaccurate."

I have never claimed to be neutral or without bias, I think that's pretty clear from the People's Vanguard of Davis site description.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting