Errors in an Article on the UC Davis Sociology Department Lead to Questions about the Davis Enterprise

On July 20, 2007 the Davis Enterprise ran an article, "Sociology courses canceled - UC Davis instructor complains after his workload is decreased" by Davis Enterprise Intern Talia Kennedy, a recent graduate from UC Davis.

The crux of the article is that the Sociology Department due to budgetary problems had to cancel a number of courses for the upcoming year.

Responding to fiscal shortcomings, the UC Davis department of sociology has canceled several courses for the 2007-08 academic year. Though department officials spared many classes led by tenured faculty, they slashed 16 undergraduate courses, many of which were taught by lecturers and acting instructors — a move that has disheartened at least one lecturer.

The article cites a sociology lecturer, David Gharagozlou who believes that his race and ethnicity are the reason that his courses were canceled.

"I (am) disappointed," said David Gharagozlou, who was hired as a sociology lecturer two years ago. Three of the courses he taught during the 2006-07 school year were canceled, and the department chairwoman, Vicki Smith, assigned him to teach only one course in the fall.

Smith, who just completed her first year as leader of the department, cited budget cuts as the reason behind the changes both in a letter to Gharagozlou and in an interview with The Enterprise. However, Gharagozlou said he believes her decisions were based on personal attitudes about his background: Gharagozlou is a native of Iran, where he once taught at the University of Tehran. His research and instruction largely focuses on political and religious fundamentalism.

"My class evaluations were good and if the personal antipathy (is) the reason for that, maybe she doesn't like my origin," Gharagozlou said in an e-mail from Sweden. "I am sorry for her because this is unprofessional and if she favor(s) others then it is a sign of favoritism, which is (a) very weak attitude and it doesn't belong to (the) quality of leadership."

The article generated a strong reaction from many others in the sociology department. In a letter to the editor, Ara Francis, a graduate student, and 23 other signators, writes:

As a doctoral candidate in the sociology department, I was alarmed to read Talia Kennedy's article about recent course cancellations. In this piece, Ms. Kennedy draws from an interview with lecturer David Gharagozlou who suggested that the department chair, Professor Vicki Smith, canceled his classes because of favoritism, the religious and political content of his courses and his Iranian heritage. These were very serious statements, none of which were corroborated, and it is unsettling that this piece was published without further investigation.

The letter goes on to criticize the writer, Talia Kennedy for failing to interview other teachers (Ms. Kennedy only interviewed Gharagozlou)--10 lecturers and instructors in the Sociology Department--about their reactions to course cancellations. Furthermore, Ms. Kennedy did not point out that the budget problems are universitywide and not specific to the Sociology department.

Finally and this is perhaps the key, lecturers are the last hired and first "fired" when budget shortfalls arise. Lecturers serve as temporary and adjunct professors and they do not receive the priority that full-time university tenured or tenure-track professors receive. So it is natural that a lecturer would have their classes cut first rather than a university professor.

Says Ara Francis, et al in the letter to the editor:

It is my impression that temporary instructors like Dr. Gharagozlou and myself constitute a "flexible labor force." This means that we are given jobs when money is available, and we are the first to lose our jobs when budgets are cut. Indeed, this is an unhappy state of affairs. However, the current status of university lecturers is a structural problem that has little to do with the hiring decisions of individual department chairs.

This is however, the beginning and not the end of the story. Though the letter to the editor was signed by Ara Francis and 23 others, when it appeared in the Davis Enterprise only Ara Francis was noted as the sole signer of the letter.

According to Ms. Francis,

When Talia Kennedy's article was published on July 20th, it generated a lot of discussion on our electronic listserv, and someone suggested that we put together a letter articulating our concerns. I drafted the letter and received endorsements from three lecturers and twenty-one graduate students (most of whom also work for the sociology department as instructors or teaching assistants).

Furthermore, the title of the published letter reads, "More Investigation Warranted." Ms. Francis believes that would lead readers to assume that the letter called for further investigation into the allegations made by Dr. Gharagozlou's when in fact, that is "quite contrary to the spirit of the letter."

The biggest complaint was that the letter only contained Ms. Francis' name.

The most problematic aspect of the published letter was that [Davis Enterprise Editor and Assistant Publisher] Debbie Davis neither included nor referred to the twenty-four endorsements, despite the fact that the original letter - signatures included - met the 350-word requirement. Those signatures were central to the letter because they presented a direct challenge to Dr. Gharagozlou's claims. Indeed, most of the endorsers were temporary instructors also affected by recent course cancellations.

Ms. Francis would speak to Debbie Davis by telephone regarding the decision to exclude the other signatures. According to Davis Enterprise Editor and Assistant Publisher Debbie Davis who graciously responded to my inquiries via email,

"It is our policy to make a follow-up phone call to confirm letters to the editor that we receive via e-mail. As I told Ara Francis, the letter writer to whom you refer, since we could not confirm the additional signers of the letter, I did not list them."

Ara Francis disputes this claim by Ms. Davis:

"I easily could have provided verification because all but one of the signatories had requested via email that their names be added to the letter."

Debbie Davis acknowledged it would have been better to have at least noted that there were additional signers.

"In retrospect, I wish I had added the line "and 24 other signers" beneath her name when her letter was published. At her request, we did just that in a separate squib published on Aug. 1."

The handling of the matter drew further scrutiny and criticism from Ara Francis. While Davis was willing to publish a small blurb in the paper noting that the letter had received twenty-four signatures rather than one signature, she was inclined to let the matter drop and not devote any further space to this incident.

According to Francis,

She went on to tell me that she preferred to not publish anything further regarding this story - including a third letter to the editor that she had received from another graduate student - because Talia Kennedy is a summer intern who feels "devastated" about the fallout from her story. She stated that she didn't want to push this young woman "over the edge."

In fact, the situation leads to questions about how the newspaper screens and eventually "hires"and supervises interns. The interns are selected and supervised by Linda DuBois, an associate editor who is on vacation and unavailable for comment. Interns receive no pay, only experience.

According to Debbie Davis:

"[I] feel it is a newspaper's responsibility to help train journalists of the future. This is a profession where much can be learned by doing. Each story gives a young reporter more experience, more confidence and more tools for the next story. We learn best by doing."

Ms. Davis went on to describe the process by which they receive and accept applications from prospective interns during the spring. Associate Editor Linda DuBois then interviews the candidates "whom she believes will suit our needs." One key consideration in that process is whether the intern has the ability to live in the area, since they are not paid for their work.

"Since we do not pay wages, that is of some concern to us. For example, we'd be unlikely to hire an intern from New York state who would have to incur a large debt to complete the summer internship"

Somewhere along the way however, this process must have broken down, as a reasonable review of Talia Kennedy and her past record would have revealed some startling revelations.

An incident occurred in mid-May of this year in which thirty-one members of the California Aggie staff, where Talia Kennedy served as campus editor last year, called for the resignation of Ms. Kennedy and Peter Hamilton, the editor in chief of the student run news paper.

In a pointed letter signed by 31 staff members, they complained that they had "no confidence" in the Aggie's leadership namely Peter Hamilton and Talia Kennedy, the ambitions of Talia Kennedy to ascend to the position of editor in chief for the following school year, and a huge amount of unnecessary expenses incurred while attending an awards banquet.

Problems had been brewing all year long. As early as December of 2006, I had spoken with a number of individuals at the California Aggie who complained about the methods of Ms. Kennedy and her relationship with the editor, Peter Hamilton. This was in response to a number of stories we did last fall complaining not only of poor coverage in the Aggie, but the lack of responsiveness of the editors to these complaints.

The Davis Wiki reported on May 24, 2007:

"The Media Board put both Peter Hamilton and Talia Kennedy on administrative leave for the remainder of their terms. In response, Hamilton locked the Aggie staff out of the website (he was drawing pay for both Online Editor and Editor in Chief). Additionally, there are reports that Hamilton changed the lock on his office, preventing access from the rest of the Aggie staff."

Was the Davis Enterprise aware of these problems just two months prior to the article on the Sociology Department? According to Debbie Davis, they were not.

"I was not aware of any internal problems at the California Aggie involving Talia Kennedy. I don't believe Linda was either."

However, a quick search on Google of "Talia Kennedy" and "California Aggie" would have revealed this incident and might have called into question the hiring of this intern.

According to Ara Francis, problems with the story on the sociology department may lead to changes with how the paper mentors their student interns.

"[Debbie Davis] said that this situation has caused the paper to reconsider how they mentor their interns, and she agreed that the story had needed further work before going to print."

However,

At the same time, she said that this issue wasn't important enough to pursue publicly. When I said it sounded like a "big mess," she replied that it was not, and that in fact, this situation it was "not even a bump in the road."

In the meantime, Talia Kennedy continues to intern at the Davis Enterprise until later this month when she will attended the UC Berkeley graduate school in their Journalism program.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: On the Politics of Long Council Meetings

The job of a blogger is never quite what one would expect. I've discovered this myself reporting on things at times that I would never have even thought about before. The issue of long meetings and civility are one of them. To be honest, I doubt the next council elections are decided on these scores. And I will go as far as to say, if they are, I will be extremely disappointed, just as I would be if national elections are decided on the issue of gay marriage when we are fighting a war abroad, oh wait...

Nevertheless it seems sometimes the role of the blogger is referee as much as it is reporter or commentator. This is because often public official make claims that are never really parsed by the reporters who report on them. And there is rarely any kind of public discourse centered around the dissembling of various claims. That is unfortunate, for in the public discussions, there needs to be some thing of a fact checker than can place issues in the public realm that the public can then weigh in on. At the end of the day, it may be that sometimes these issues are of little consequence, other times they turn out to be crucial for understanding the behavior and motivations of our elected officials.

This role comes to mind as I read the California Aggies' version of the "long meetings" dispute which of course followed the one by us and the one by the Davis Enterprise.

Right away, they are factually incorrect when they state:

"Greenwald insists meeting four times a month, Asmundson two."

In fact, Greenwald has insisted on "more" meetings per month, not necessarily "four." There is almost something Shakespearean about that error, that I cannot place. There kind of a poetic irony to that. Nevertheless, it is a somewhat crucial distinction since the responses within the article seem to dovetail from it.

The issue of whether city staff members have enough time to prepare agendas and reports for weekly meetings is also being debated by the council.

"We're not an overstaffed organization," said Davis City Manager Bill Emlen, who coordinates Tuesday night meetings. "We have been pushing our wheels and we have to work pretty hard."

Emlen said the current workload is manageable for his organization, but he would ideally like to see meetings every two weeks - enough time to produce reports without feeling rushed.

On one level I understand it, on another level, I really do not. In the fewer meetings, they presumably prepare for the same number of items, so staff would be doing a similar amount of work. Would they not? Perhaps I'm not understanding the math here. Is it not better to spread the work out over two meetings rather than have to prepare for a large amount of items for a single meeting? Why is staff preparation time an issue here unless the number of items really are not a constant.?

Councilmember Don Saylor was paraphrased as saying that "he supported going as late into the night as necessary to complete the city's business."

Legitimate questions I think have been raised about the wisdom of making important decisions late in the night. There is also the public to consider. Most people are not watching the meetings at 1 am. Nor can many who have to work attend these meetings on a regular basis. So Mr. Saylor's support for such meetings to go late into the night does not appear to be taking the public into consideration.

"He noted in an e-mail that the duration of a meeting wasn't related to how many items were on the agenda.

"The longest meeting in 2006-07 (8 hours 30 minutes) featured 19 total items, including 13 consent items and 6 regular agenda items," Saylor wrote. "The shortest (2 hours 58 minutes) featured 15 total items, including 10 consent items and 5 regular agenda items."

This statement really misses the point. First of all, the number of consent agenda items are almost irrelevant, even when those items are pulled they are generally (But not always) discussed fairly briefly.

The key issue is not number of regular agenda items, but the degree of complexity of those items. You could put 10 regular agenda items that are fairly quick, or three that are quite long.

In the meeting in question from April, a single agenda item was so complex it required much discussion, public input, and then multiple motions to sort through it. That item by itself took over three hours. On the other hand, there are other agenda items that may take 20 minutes, sometimes less.

The proper variable to discuss is not the number items. The point in contention is not therefore too many items, but rather too many of those long items that require hours of discussion. Many of these complex items are predictable in the sense that you know when you see the item that it will take much discussion. Thus meetings could be organized in such a way so that those type of items are spread across meetings, rather than having several very long items on the same agenda.

Regardless there is a final point to be made here and that has to do with civility. Don Saylor made it an express point during his op-ed to the Davis Enterprise and during several monologues from the dais to note the problems of incivility in council and community discourse. And yet at the point that Asmundson made her attack on Mayor Greenwald about Mayor Greenwald not being able to run a meeting, Councilmember Saylor feel silent. Where was his call for civility then? It is clear that he intends to use the civility issue as a platform to run for re-election, given his track record and uneven application of it, I'm not sure it will give him the kind of traction he expects it to. Then again, perhaps he figures if they are talking about civility, they cannot talk about his land-use positions.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Poor Reporting Continues in the Cal Aggie

Last weekend we reported on an op-ed in the California Aggie criticizing Congressional Candidates Charlie Brown and Jerry McNerney, it was an article long on opinion, but that played fast and loose with the facts.

Yesterday an article appeared on Target, again it is full of inaccuracies and unchecked quotes.

For instance, Saylor is quote as saying: "The Target is projected to generate between $750,000 and $1 million in annual sales tax."

In fact, the City projects between $500,000 and $600,000 in tax revenues, and some have criticized those projections as being overly optimistic. The writer should check quoted facts before reporting them as fact.

The writer further mentioned "nearly $300 million in one-time payments that the city will receive if the store is built." The actual number is $3 million. It has since been changed on the website, but the print edition went out with the inaccurate figure.

It is one thing for us to disagree with the editor of the Aggie politically, but efforts need to be made to report things accurately.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Cal Aggie's Criticism of Brown and McNerney Misses the Mark

Someone has sent me a copy of the Op-ed from Thursday in California Aggie that attacks Charlie Brown and Jerry McNerney for failing to show up at a UC Davis campus event. The op-ed piece is filled with errors and inaccuracies.

First, the charge that the campaigns “they disrespected the campus population and demonstrated that the student vote is not a priority for their campaigns.” The UC Davis campus is nowhere near the districts for either campaign. The campaigns had been invited by a local political operative and the College Democrats of UC Davis to recruit volunteers to help with these campaigns. Unfortunately given the length of travel time--well over an hour-and-a-half round trip--it seemed better for the candidates to remain in their districts speaking to actual voters and to send surrogates in their place.

Second, “The two men are vying for the opportunity to represent the fourth district, which encompasses several counties in the Sierra Nevada area, including El Dorado and Sacramento.” Actually the two men are fighting for different districts. Brown is opposing Republican incumbent John Doolittle in the 4th district (which encompasses Roseville, Auburn, Lake Tahoe all the way up the eastern side of California's Nevada boarder to Oregon.) McNerney is in the 11^th district, facing incumbent Republican Richard Pombo (which encompasses Stockton, Tracy, down into the south Bay Area.)

Third, “While Stenhouse said his candidate believes young people play an important part in the election, Brown did not have the courtesy to give sufficient notice of his cancellation, thus potentially alienating student voters who showed up to hear him speak.” Potentially alienating the student voters who showed up? Only five students showed up and none of the students who showed up could have voted for them. Only 12 people in total attended the event including the students, the event organizers and the candidate's representatives. The campaigns were hoping to be able to mobilize young volunteers to help with their final effort. Unfortunately, due to the suspected low event turnout and the amount of time that the candidates would have to take out of their busy day, it was determined that it would not be productive use of their time to have the candidates themselves there. Facing many obligations each campaign must judge the value of using their candidate, their limited resoures and their time wisely. One of the lessons that people need to learn about politics is how much work a campaign involves. I’ve been to numerous events that have had to be altered or cancelled because of other commitments and priorities.

Fourth, “Students deserve to hear the political goals of congressional candidates as much as older voters. As such, any campaign official who visits the campus should be prepared and focus on the campaign issues.” The op-ed writer apparently was unaware of the purpose of this rally.

Finally, “With the election less than two weeks away, time is crucial. These candidates must now work to garner the support of student constituents before it's too late.” Again, the op-ed writer apparently has no idea where these districts lie or the fact that none of these students are constituents.

The bottom line is that while the California Aggie is a student paper, they need to do their homework and understand that this rally was not about garnering votes but tapping volunteers. Instead of throwing uneducated accusations towards the Brown and McNerney campaigns, had they done so they would have realized that these two candidates represent districts far from the UC Davis campus but were hoping to tap into the energies of young students to add grassroots workers in the final days of the campaign and had been invited to do just that. I find it illustrative that the op-ed never mentions the number of students (again, five) who actually attended this rally or explains to us what the purpose of the rally was. Unfortunately, the writers do not appear to understand it themselves.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting