Sound Off for Nov. 9, 2008
Reader: I am a new resident to the Bakersfield area, an avid reader of The Californian and a 19-year-old college student.
I sat down today to catch up on some of the past day's papers to see a very racist headline on Wednesday's front page. It reads: "Kern's blacks celebrate Barack Obama's historic victory."
The article then goes into interviewing different African-American residents of the Kern County area to have them praising Barack Obama's victory. How in any way is this OK for The Californianto print?
If McCain had won, would you have printed "Kern's whites celebrate John McCain's victory?" Of course you wouldn't because that simply would have been racist, correct? If you were to interview only white people on how thrilled they were to have a white president, that would be OK? Of course it wouldn't.
Your newspaper is promoting the ideal that only whites can be racist. The idea I get from reading the headline is that it is OK for you to be racist toward white people. White people are not allowed to celebrate Barack Obama's victory? Just because a person's skin color isn't black, they can't be just as thrilled and celebrate just as much as Barack Obama being our president? This makes me, being a white person, simply want to go back to the racist ways of my forefathers.
If it's OK for the newspapers to only interview blacks and say that only blacks are celebrating a victory makes me want to speak out for my race. I have talked with several people about this and they all feel the same. Many people think The Californianis trying to start a race war in Kern County. What a horrible thing to want for your hometown.
I will also be bringing this up in all of my classes and be convincing others of how racist your newspaper is.
I like to think of myself as not being a racist person, so therefore, I am being forced to give up on my daily reading of The Californianin order to prevent racist ideals from being force-fed to me.
Shame on all of you.
— Brian Chase
Jenner: Whoa. If you don't want to read us, that's your decision.
But with all due respect, I find your argument absurd.
We did talk to white people who were happy about Obama's victory. And we quoted them in Wednesday's paper.
But on Tuesday, our nation elected our first black president. That's historic, whether you are white or black, and whether you voted for Obama or McCain or no one at all.
We thought it appropriate to talk to members of the black community and to do a story on what this means to them — not to disrespect whites, but because the event is likely to mean something different to people who aren't white.
Some of the people we talked to who lived through the civil rights movement remember a time when blacks couldn't vote, let alone have a chance of being elected president.
That's why we did the story.
So just how does it make us a racist newspaper? And how does that translate into "trying to start a race war"?
Reader: I was just calling on behalf of this crappy headline, "Kern's blacks celebrate Barack Obama's historic victory."
Who is the racist who wrote this?
Whoever did should be horse-whipped, because this is a racist statement.
Kern's "blacks"?
What happened to "African Americans"?
What happened to actually putting something more respectable in the newspaper?
Who wrote this crap?
Whoever wrote this should be ashamed of themselves, and the newspaper should be ashamed of itself, too.
You're a disgrace to Bakersfield.
-- James Knox
Jenner: Ouch.
Our style is to use the word "black" to describe members of the black community unless a subject of our stories tells us they prefer to be identified as "African American."
That's been our style for years.
I'm presuming that the word might seem less offensive if we used it as an adjective, rather than a noun, as in "black voters."
I'm sorry we offended you.
•••
Reader: There are some decisions that are dumb and others just plain stupid. Raising the newsstand price of the newspaper from 50 cents to 75 cents was clearly the latter. I travel in and out of town a lot, but when in town usually buy from the newsstand.
The timing and the rate increase of 50 percent is ridiculous. Let's see, if very many people are doing what I am doing and not buying the paper, that 25-cent increase is hard to justify when the 50 cents that was spent is also gone.
I think you would have to admit the newsstand price doesn't make up much of the overall revenue for the paper.
-- Gene Dawes
John Wells, our vice president of circulation, responds: Gene, your comment about the contribution of newsstand sales is correct.
Circulation revenue is less than 18 percent of our total revenue, and subscriptions are a greater proportion of that than newsstand sales.
But we haven't raised the newsstand price in 17 years. What else are you buying at 1991 prices?
Definitely not food, gas and clothes.
With the increases we've encountered in the cost of gas (to deliver the paper), newsprint, health benefits and so on, we have to face reality.
I do realize that in these economic times raising our rates may not seem like the "smartest" thing to do.
But I believe that even at 75 cents, the daily paper remains a great value.
•••
Reader: Misinformation can be as simple as failing to tell the whole story.
The Californianran a Washington Postarticle about the Alaska State Personnel Board clearing Gov. Sarah Palin of ethics charges.
The article fails to mention the reason the review was held and controversies about the Personnel Board and its decision.
The investigation was held because of a complaint by Palin herself, which she raised when attempts failed to delay the earlier bipartisan investigation, which concluded that she violated ethics laws.
The Personnel Board consists of three members, originally appointed by Palin's Republican predecessor. One of them was reappointed by Palin for another term. Unlike the earlier investigation, this was not bipartisan.
The controversy regards evidence ignored by the investigation. In an interview with fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan, he said, "The conversations absolutely did take place." (heraldtribune.com/article/20081104 /ARTICLE/811040381/0/APS?Title =New_trooper_investigation_clears_Palin )
That assertion means the Personnel Board did not gather evidence in the same way as the bipartisan board and may have simply filtered out anything incriminating.
The Personnel Board report is biased, completely one-sided and meant to obfuscate the legitimate earlier finding of Palin's ethics violations.
The Californian'sand The Washington Post'scoverage is a fine example of media being manipulated for political purposes.
— Richard Shiell
Jenner: We've written extensively about the so-called "Troopergate" affair and the legislature's investigation and findings.
We did not run an exhaustive story on the Personnel Board's report on the day it came out — the day before the election.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
•••
Reader: It is now Friday after the election on Tuesday and I've yet to see any final election results.
Some preliminary numbers were given in Wednesday's issue, and other than an article about Kern County having some issues with counting the votes, nothing else has been seen. Will we see some results before Christmas?
— Everett Greene
Jenner: We do plan to run complete election results from Kern County, but we need to have them before we can publish them.
As we've reported, the county's Elections Division has more than 40,000 uncounted ballots — most of them absentees and some provisional ballots.
At this point, no one can definitively tell where these ballots were cast, and in the case of some races, it's quite possible they could change the outcome.
Elections officials hope to complete the task of counting the ballots by midweek. We'll run a full list at that point.
•••
Reader: I'm calling about the "What to know before you go" on Sunday's front page under "What should I bring" to the polls.
You say you don't need ID. I'm sure that you are aware that first-time voters absolutely need to bring ID, not only ID but another form of identification as well.
I hope that you are going to be wise enough to put on the very front page in a very large, easy-to-read, noticeable column the information that first-time voters need to go to the polls.
Thank you.
— Linda Welch
Jenner: I want to thank you, Linda, for bringing this issue to our attention.
We published incorrect information in last Sunday's paper when we told voters they did not need to bring an ID.
In fact, voters who have cast ballots before at the same polling place don't need to bring one, but first-time voters certainly do.
Because of your e-mail, we were able to re-check our information and publish both a Page One correction and a new notice to voters on the front page.
We hate to make mistakes, but when we do err, we want to know it right away so we can get the correct information to our readers as quickly as possible.
