Monday, January 26, 2015

'Editor/journalist' taking a Lake Worth resident "out of context" and twisting "tone" of story

Margaret Menge's 2nd Edition of her 'newspaper' came out on Friday (1/23/15) and it is, being kind, sort of a mess. Typos, missing text, inaccurate leaders, a "Correction" (already!) to the 1st Edition, and now a Lake Worth resident, Dina Clingman-Bell, who was "taken out of context" to identify just a few missteps. Margaret Menge's newspaper is only 8 pages but I need a staff to keep on top of this amateurish effort from a purported professional. One can only imagine a Charter School, proposed by Ms. Menge, specializing in the Classics and how that would be run on a day-to-day basis.

On January 16, Margaret Menge, in her story about the house fire at 313 North Palmway, deceptively quoted Dina Clingman-Bell and took her observations out of context. Anyone who has participated in an emergency situation knows how these settings are fluid and change in seconds. However, Margaret Menge had the opportunity to besmirch Lake Worth Fire Rescue and she did so with zeal. Ms. Menge wrote this on 1/16/15, taking Dina Clingman-Bell (North Palmway resident, immediate neighbor to the south of fire location) out of context:

Ms. Menge reported Dina Clingman-Bell saying: " 'Why isn't this [the existence of a gas-powered generator] something the fire department knows immediately?' asked the neighbor, Dina Bell. She [Dina Clingman-Bell] says she watched as the firefighters got the fire under control, and then saw it reignite again and flames shoot into the air [...]".

To Ms. Dina Clingman-Bell's credit she wrote a "Letter to the Editor [Margaret Menge]" on Ms. Menge's "out of context" and "negative" portrayal of the events of the house-fire on January 9th on the 300 block of North Palmway:

Ms. Dina Clingman-Bell wrote:
I do feel some of the article [by Margaret Menge] may be taken out of context. The affected home and ours are less than 10 feet apart. The brave men and women, of the thirteen fire crews responding, persistently not only battled the blaze at 313 against many odds, but also managed to protect our home and I am certain, many others, as well.
Ms. Dina Clingman-Bell ended her "Letter to the Editor" with this:
Any reference to the negative [by journalist/editor Margaret Menge] was certainly not implied by me personally.
Here is what Margaret Menge wrote about her last real journalism job: "I was a deputy editor of a terrible [emphasis added] little newspaper there [in Key West], a job that tied me down to an ugly office in a strip mall next to a Ross store. And that's all I have to say about Key West". I guess this is the sort of job you get when no one else will hire you, unless you want someone to distort the truth prior to an election in a small town. This seems to be this editor's niche.