At the suggestion of Charles over at the Claremont Conservative, a Claremont McKenna College student blog, we picked up a copy of the April 25th edition of Pomona College's weekly journal of creative writing, The Student Life (TSL).
You may recall that that TSL ran an error-filled article about CMC history professor Jonathan Petropoulos on April 4th that resulted in that week's issue of the paper being pulled from newsstands. TSL's Petropoulos article included a headline that seemed to imply that the professor had been criminally charged with a crime related to a Camille Pissarro painting (Petropoulos has not been charged with any crime), and it also included a very large, mislabeled image of the wrong painting.
Now, we don't want to single out a student paper for an honest error. Lord knows we have our share of mistakes, but we do try to acknowledge those and correct them as soon as possible. TSL's Petropoulos story seemed worse than an simple mistake. Anytime an entire issue of a paper has to be erased from history, something's wrong. Of course, one could argue that the removal may have been an apt metaphor for the whole Petropoulos affair.
Besides the problems with the headline and the image, the article itself seemed like a pastische of passages from other articles, including the work of Claremont Independent editor Elise Viebeck. As we wrote at the time, TSL's reporting for the Petropoulos piece was a lazy sort of journalism.
So, we weren't really expecting much when we got the last week's TSL, which carried an article on page 2 by writer Kavisha Singh about a visit by Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor on April 16th to Pomona College's Women's Union.
We couldn't help but notice some pretty obvious errors in the piece, some of which could probably be attributed to Queen Ellen's usual dissembling. However, is it too much to ask for a little fact-checking? To begin with, the article states that Taylor contrasted Claremont's strong tradition of women involved in city governance with neighboring La Verne, which the article said "has never had a female council member."
Well, here's an image of the La Verne City Council's website (note the councilmember farthest to the right, Donna Nasmyth):
So, was Ellen wrong, or is she trying to insinuate that La Verne's Nasmyth is a transvestite? Some clarification, please, TSL. To make its point, the article might have said that Nasmyth is La Verne's first female councilmember, but it did not.
The article also painted a false picture of Taylor as being unfairly criticized (much like Hillary Clinton, Taylor seemed to hint), for being a strong woman. Taylor was quoted as saying, "In this field, a strong man is seen as charismatic, but a strong woman is considered aggressive."
What the article failed to acknowledge is that fact that Taylor hasn't been unfairly criticized because of her gender. Instead, she's been rightly characterized as an arrogant, egotistic, bullying person. Her behavior would be wrong in anybody, and Taylor's hiding behind gender is the worst sort of cowardice. TSL's reporter obviously did not do enough homework. After all, how does Taylor's attacking fellow females fit into her portrait of herself as a victim?
There's nothing wrong with a strong woman. There's plenty wrong with an obnoxious autocrat who abuses her position of power.
The article contained plenty of other Taylor misinformation. According to the TLS piece, for instance, Taylor mentioned the acquistion of Johnson's Pasture as a success. TSL failed to mention, though, how the actions of Taylor and fellow councilmembers Peter Yao, Linda Elderkin, and Sam Pedroza almost resulted in the city's failure to be able to purchase the land.
Recall that those four councilmembers were part of the group that pushed the 2006 Parks and Pastures assessment district as a funding mechanism for Johnson's Pasture. The assessment was opposed by a majority of property owners in Claremont because only about half of the money $48 million it would have generated would have gone to paying for the pasture. The rest of the money was at best very loosely programmed and was seen as a backdoor way of creating a new revenue stream for the city. The assessment failed 56% to 44% because of the greed and overreaching of Taylor, et al.
In contrast, the bond measure that was eventually passed for Johnson's Pasture will end up costing about half of what the assessment would have and will be paid off at least five years sooner than the assessment district would have and was initially opposed by Taylor.
The TSL article also claimed that Taylor said the city "is also considering building a medical marijuana dispensary." Imagine that, Claremont going into the ganja biz. Talk about a new revenue stream!
A word to TSL, whenever you plan on doing another article about local issues, check your facts, especially when dealing with our Mayor. Is that really too much to ask?
You may recall that that TSL ran an error-filled article about CMC history professor Jonathan Petropoulos on April 4th that resulted in that week's issue of the paper being pulled from newsstands. TSL's Petropoulos article included a headline that seemed to imply that the professor had been criminally charged with a crime related to a Camille Pissarro painting (Petropoulos has not been charged with any crime), and it also included a very large, mislabeled image of the wrong painting.
Now, we don't want to single out a student paper for an honest error. Lord knows we have our share of mistakes, but we do try to acknowledge those and correct them as soon as possible. TSL's Petropoulos story seemed worse than an simple mistake. Anytime an entire issue of a paper has to be erased from history, something's wrong. Of course, one could argue that the removal may have been an apt metaphor for the whole Petropoulos affair.
Besides the problems with the headline and the image, the article itself seemed like a pastische of passages from other articles, including the work of Claremont Independent editor Elise Viebeck. As we wrote at the time, TSL's reporting for the Petropoulos piece was a lazy sort of journalism.
Click to Enlarge
So, we weren't really expecting much when we got the last week's TSL, which carried an article on page 2 by writer Kavisha Singh about a visit by Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor on April 16th to Pomona College's Women's Union.We couldn't help but notice some pretty obvious errors in the piece, some of which could probably be attributed to Queen Ellen's usual dissembling. However, is it too much to ask for a little fact-checking? To begin with, the article states that Taylor contrasted Claremont's strong tradition of women involved in city governance with neighboring La Verne, which the article said "has never had a female council member."
Well, here's an image of the La Verne City Council's website (note the councilmember farthest to the right, Donna Nasmyth):
So, was Ellen wrong, or is she trying to insinuate that La Verne's Nasmyth is a transvestite? Some clarification, please, TSL. To make its point, the article might have said that Nasmyth is La Verne's first female councilmember, but it did not.
The article also painted a false picture of Taylor as being unfairly criticized (much like Hillary Clinton, Taylor seemed to hint), for being a strong woman. Taylor was quoted as saying, "In this field, a strong man is seen as charismatic, but a strong woman is considered aggressive."
What the article failed to acknowledge is that fact that Taylor hasn't been unfairly criticized because of her gender. Instead, she's been rightly characterized as an arrogant, egotistic, bullying person. Her behavior would be wrong in anybody, and Taylor's hiding behind gender is the worst sort of cowardice. TSL's reporter obviously did not do enough homework. After all, how does Taylor's attacking fellow females fit into her portrait of herself as a victim?
There's nothing wrong with a strong woman. There's plenty wrong with an obnoxious autocrat who abuses her position of power.
The article contained plenty of other Taylor misinformation. According to the TLS piece, for instance, Taylor mentioned the acquistion of Johnson's Pasture as a success. TSL failed to mention, though, how the actions of Taylor and fellow councilmembers Peter Yao, Linda Elderkin, and Sam Pedroza almost resulted in the city's failure to be able to purchase the land.
Recall that those four councilmembers were part of the group that pushed the 2006 Parks and Pastures assessment district as a funding mechanism for Johnson's Pasture. The assessment was opposed by a majority of property owners in Claremont because only about half of the money $48 million it would have generated would have gone to paying for the pasture. The rest of the money was at best very loosely programmed and was seen as a backdoor way of creating a new revenue stream for the city. The assessment failed 56% to 44% because of the greed and overreaching of Taylor, et al.
In contrast, the bond measure that was eventually passed for Johnson's Pasture will end up costing about half of what the assessment would have and will be paid off at least five years sooner than the assessment district would have and was initially opposed by Taylor.
The TSL article also claimed that Taylor said the city "is also considering building a medical marijuana dispensary." Imagine that, Claremont going into the ganja biz. Talk about a new revenue stream!
A word to TSL, whenever you plan on doing another article about local issues, check your facts, especially when dealing with our Mayor. Is that really too much to ask?
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