Beezlegrunk OP t1_jclp6ho wrote on March 17, 2023 at 7:04 PM

Reply to comment by RIDG86 in The failure of Providence’s Fane tower is a lesson in politics and reality by Beezlegrunk

>I disagree with your take, but we are both entitled to our opinions.

"Entitled" seems too strong a word — maybe we both just "have" opinions? I think the "every opinion is equally valid" idea is not borne out by real-world experience ...

>I did look up the Globe RI staff and found that Lylah M. Alphonse is ¨the Rhode Island Editor for the Boston Globe, where she leads a team covering and exploring the Ocean State.¨ I dont see anyone with the bureau chief title, but i suspect that role is probably played by the editor.

That's well observed — I'll adjust McGowan's title commensurately, which actually makes me feel slightly better, though I still don't understand why he has so much sports coverage in the daily e-mail newsletter. That you don't seem to notice that is odd.

>people find issue with journalistic objectivity when they feel slighted by a perceived subjective aspect of an article.

Calling a concern "silly" reveals one's bias, but it was more his admission that he deliberately ignored questions about Fane tower's financing because he dismissed them as rivalry — that's pretty weak sauce. I think he did it because he supported the tower or more downtown development in general. It was at least worth looking into ...

>the reason no one did in-depth coverage on financing, or lack thereof, is because that info is not public.

So no reporters have ever covered stories in which all the information wasn't public? Please. It's a reporter's job to seek out that information, and in the absence of being able to do so, reporting the lack of information as a critical issue that brings the subject itself into question. Silence on the issue only really served one side: Fane.

>I suspect that maybe its a slight to call someone a sports journalist?

There's different kinds of sports reporting — some of which includes never really looking beyond the surface of issues, and always taking team pronouncements as gospel, in the name of supporting the home team and not pissing off fans. That's not journalism, though, it's boosterism / fanboy-ishness. We see similar things with business reporting that never really questions corporate pronouncements or motives. Then it's suddenly a surprise when we find out a company has been lying all along.

>I do not see Mcgowan going on and on about sports or covering it in depth

Read the daily newsletter and you'll see what I mean. Even the Fane tower column has a bunch of sports references in it. I think he sees every issue as some sort of competitive contest and his job as a reporter is to 'handicap' the eventual outcome — i.e, "The odds are against person X achieving outcome Y" — likes it's a pre-game report or post-game analysis. What we don't see are a lot of incisive questions or insightful reporting based on going behind the obvious public facade that everyone can see. It's generally pretty shallow ...

RIDG86 t1_jclzzpg wrote on March 17, 2023 at 8:15 PM

I got to tell you, as I began to read this I thought your tone was going to be snippy with the whole entitled to have opinions versus having opinions…..but reading your whole reply I am going to revisit that first impression as you simply trying to be particularly thoughtful in your reply, and I can appreciate that.

Just to push back on your eventual point in the first paragraph, i never said both of our opinions are equally valid, just that we are both entitled to have an opinion. I will maintain that is true. In fact, I know I am bias, but I give my own opinion more weight than yours. And I do not hold it against you if you do the same with you own opinion on this subject!

The whole reason I made that statement was to acknowledge that we hit an impasse. I am not going change your mind and your weren’t going to change mine.

I will say that I do read his newsletter, I used to follow his PVD Facebook page that he had going before going to the Globe. (Not even sure if that is still maintained). That is all to say, that over a better part of a decade I have been reading McGowan articles. I will acknowledge that he does use sport analogies from time to time, but I do not see it as much as a problem as you seem to do. Moreover, given that he cover politics more than anything else, I cant think of what politics translates more perfectly into than sports. Elections are races, candidates are judged by their performance by the electorate, votes like points determine the winner. Some candidates, like sports teams, are better funded than others. And like in sports everyone loves a good underdog story line.

In any event, pure objectivity in journalism is a myth. I am not even sure what that would look like. Even with a plain reporting of the facts, I find folks who do not like what they are hearing would question the objectivity of not contextualizing those facts in a way that they subjectively believe is needed. In this instance, if reporters questioned the financing without any basis that it does or does not exist….that would not sound too objective to me if I were supporting the tower...

As far as digging up the Fane financing, or lack thereof, thats an unfair expectation. Fane had every reason not to publish that information for business reasons. Short of that, as far as I know the Fourth Estate does not have subpoena powers.

Again good talk. This is my last reply friend, I leave you to have the last word if you so desire it!