The "Media" and Government

One of my favorite Sunday morning news shows is "Reliable Sources" on CNN.The show appears at 11 a.m. and is hosted by Howard Kurtz.  Kurtz is a media writer for the Washington Post and the show is one of the longest running on CNN.  The program's focus is how media covers the days events and how the media influences the perception of the events they cover.  Sometimes it's about how the media becomes part of the message, beyond the actual facts of what has actually transpired.

Today, Robert Gibbs was interviewed by Kurtz.  Gibbs is President Obama's press secretary.  They talked about the 24 hour news cycle, the advent of blogs, Twitter - which Gibbs is taking to quickly by the way - and the use of live TV cameras in the daily press briefing at the White House.  Gibbs says that he can tell when someone has a particularly good question since they come to the briefing room in full TV make-up.  Gibbs also spent a lot of time defending Obama's availability to the press corp and his willingness, or unwillingness depending on your point of view, to field questions.

This got me to thinking.  We have already confirmed through countless examples that Lake Worth does a very poor job with communication - to residents, business people, other municipalities and governments.  Recently, I am hearing more and more people being frustrated with the opportunities the city gives residents to communicate ideas, feelings, beliefs, desires, problems, etc.  This can be either to the Commission as a whole, to individual Commissioners and Mayor, or many in the administration.  There are exceptions, but still this is a common thread among many.

Bravo to Mayor Varela for his "Coffee with the Mayor" initiative and his "State of the City" address.  This is a good start.  Let's hope it continues.  But how about a weekly or monthly press briefing on Lake Worth issues?  Maybe this will address some of the disenfranchisement people are experiencing.

Part of this frustration stems from the way public comment is formatted for City Commission meetings.  You are allowed only two minutes to bring forth any item not currently on that particular regular City Commission agenda.  For any individual item, you are limited to two minutes if you want to express your concerns just on that one specific thing.  Last Saturday, after the presentations by the architectural firms for the Casino building rehabilitation, public comment was allowed and I had a lot of things to say, but just didn't know where to begin given the two minute limitation.  If you read some of my posts on that topic, I think you can understand why this was a problem.  That particular day, four fifths of the people that spoke were people that the Commission hears from at every meeting, usually on every topic.  It turns out even these "regulars" don't feel as if they are being heard and that decisions are already "predetermined."  They could say anything and the final result would be the same.

Now, there is some question as to whether or not work sessions deserve a public comment period and there seems to be a split view on the Commission on how to address the issue.  We have also returned to a series of daytime meetings.  For example, the meeting when the selection of the architectural team took place at 8:30 a.m.  Work sessions - many times when the Commission comes to a "consensus" which is hard to understand how that isn't a decision -  occur regularly on alternate Tuesday afternoons from regular City Commission meetings.

One of the planks of my last campaign platform was the establishment of regular, monthly listening meetings throughout the city.  It seems no one has taken off with that idea, but the concept is a good one and one that still should be considered to address what is essentially a communication crisis.  One is left to conclude that those elected and appointed officials don't want people to really know what is going on.  They think for some reason this is a safer course of action.  But it really isn't.  It just continues to breed mistrust in what is happening within local government, which foments contempt, which results in anger.  That anger is part of what we see, on a national level, with the Tea Party movement.

In terms of "media" that cover local government goings-on in Lake Worth, we have the Lake Worth Herald and the Palm Beach Post.  Occasionally, if the news event is sensational enough, Lake Worth will be covered by one of the local TV outlets.  Otherwise, local TV stations will tell us who won and who lost in an election, but rarely talk about the issues that led to the result or really have any on-going coverage of local government.  The Lake Worth Herald is a limited circulation local paper that is published weekly.  It can only cover a certain number of items each week and is also constrained by a limited number of pages devoted to news.  It also has a predictable editorial line and has no Internet presence.  The Palm Beach Post assigns a regular "beat" reporter and we may get one or two articles in a week that cover a Lake Worth issue.  The editorial board at the Post might as well be the Information Ministry for the Jennings, Golden and Mulvehill triumvirate.  We will be waiting forever if we are looking for even-handed treatment from those inhabitants of the cozy, paneled corner offices at the Post.

So, to fill the information void, we have a series of blogs here in Lake Worth.  Most of them have links from this blog that can be found in the right hand column.  These are put together by people, through their own expense of time and sometimes money, as a way to communicate to the public.  None of these are guaranteed to be around for a long time - although digital histories prove to be very permanent and the archived messages will long out live their authors.  But no one is requiring any of these people, including yours truly, to continue their efforts.  I am appreciative of the loyal readership that this blog enjoys and hope that you are able to get a lot from it.  We are nearing 3,000 individual posts, by the way, over a period of four years.

But don't rely on it alone!  Read the others even if you usually disagree with them - especially if you disagree with them.  It's only through the synthesis of these "rare" voices that we are able to form our own opinions on a topic.

The bottom line here is that the City and the Commission have to find a way to address this information "gulf." Everyone talks about the importance of transparency in decision-making.  How can that happen if residents either don't know its happening or are not given a chance to voice their opinion before a decision is made?  Or, what if the information vacuum is used by those that fill the void with false or misleading information for their own political benefit?

Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.