By Doug Porter
Since the voters spoke back in November and handed the proponents of darkness and austerity a resounding defeat, the forces of reaction throughout the State of California have been seeking to throw a monkey wrench into the process.
At San Diego’s UT, this process is blatant, with factually challenged front page articles suggesting that businesses are fleeing California followed by editorials citing the suppositions minted earlier as gospel truth.
With San Diego’s ‘independent’ news source, aka The Voice of San Diego, the propagation of the reactionary agenda is accomplished via mindless contrarianism. The need to push controversy overwhelms any need for fact checking; it’s okay to let public officials yell ‘fire’ in the schoolhouses of our city.
So it was with this sense of ‘newsworthiness’ that the VOSD published an interview on Friday with Stan “Data” Dobbs, the newly hired Chief Financial Officer for the San Diego School Unified School District.
After telling interviewer Will Carless that “I get bored quickly if I don’t have enough problems to solve”, Dobbs proceeds to create a whole lot of problems for the School District and, most likely, his future employment prospects.
I have no issue with the publication of the interview. But common sense would dictate a word or two in the introduction for the story that some of the assertions presented were worth a follow-up or might be controversial.
And I’m sure if the subject was race, as opposed to education, a broad and controversial statement along the lines of “[insert race here] are shiftless and lazy” would have at least raised a journalistic warning flag. Those kinds of statements are apparently okay if the subject is education.
Amongst the erroneous drivel spewed by the supposed bean-counter were the following ‘facts’:
**The average pay of a teacher at SDUSD is $92,000 annually.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the correct number is $65,367. That’s three thousand less than the statewide average. He also made comments about benefits which I know were inaccurate. It wasn’t possible to succinctly explain a rather complicated contract with a lot of moving parts.
**There is ‘not one piece of literature published to prove’ increased class size has a negative impact on learning.
Except, of course, the most comprehensive study ever done on the subject. Or this one. Or this one. From the official abstract: “The 4-year study assessed the performance of over 6,500 students who attended K-3 classrooms having differing numbers of students and found evidence of short- and long-term benefits from smaller class sizes.” To be truthful, there is conflicting evidence on the subject. But to say nothing has ever been published is just w.r.o.n.g.
Then there were the assumptions that aren’t so easily checked with a Google search. But they sure dovetail nicely with the foundational arguments used by the anti-public education crowd on the right.
** “I’ve got hundreds of extra people, laying around. Literally, laying around. Maybe not even benefiting kids.”
We’re issuing a public call (I’ll email this to him) for John Oliver of the crack Daily Show news team to come to San Diego to document all this “literally, laying around”. It should make for good television.
**Then there’s the SDUSD Board of Trustees, “Placed, strategically, by the labor unions.”
I’m sure that Trustee Richard Barrera, whose home was picketed by the union, will be glad to know he’s a toady. The fact is that the majority of Board are Democrats. But their relationship with the SDEA -the teacher’s union- can hardly be described as subservient. It’s complicated. But the right-wingers are pissed because the Board won’t play along with their union-busting agenda.
Lest there be any doubt about the impact of this ‘journalism’ on the ‘conversation’ about education, let’s go to the comments, where the interview has truly stirred the local tea party hive:
I LOVE this guy!
I hope he’s bored in 4 years so he can replace Filner as Mayor!
The first thing I thought was that I hope he has a contract. The second is that people who think what he is saying is important NEED TO BE THERE FOR HIM — not just sit on the sidelines as observers.
Who woulda imagined? A bloated bureaucracy in California? Shocked. SHOCKED!
Got bad news for the School Board: he’s taking you to the woodshed.
Maybe he could fix the sidewalks and streets next. I LOVE enigmatic South Carolinians.
In the interest of fairness, I will say there were many comments pointing out the CFO’s warped perspective. My favorite:
..I realize that you’re all for stirring up the masses with controversial topics. But, really – this level of un-investigative reporting is really beneath your talents. Mr. (and I use the term loosely) Dobbs walked all over that interview, and left a few items laying the grass for others to pick up. You’ve interviewed enough school employees to realize that his so-called facts weren’t worth the air he was breathing.
My sister left this gem on the VOSD FB page in support of teachers (being one herself). Perhaps Dobbs would take some time from his teacher-bashing schedule and actually check out the research she mentions: [repost begins]
I think the journalist- Will Careless was not prepared for anything. He let Dobbs speak without questioning any of his statements. If Careless wishes to keep that “investigative” term in front of his reporter, then he should actually do his job.
At this point he is just a mouthpiece, not a journalist. Where was the critical response to those statements?…
I hear they’re ‘fact checking’ this story over at Voice of San Diego. I’ll bet the ‘Taypayers’ groups won’t include that information in their propaganda.
Meanwhile, this interview does raise questions in my mind about SDUSD’s administration and leadership. Like: “Who hired this idiot?” or “What were you thinking?”.
Postscript- I’m well aware of SDUSD’s many shortcomings. I have a kid attending school here. But this sort of individual (and those that gave him an uncritical platform) certainly isn’t going to do anything to improve local schools.
UPDATE: San Diego Unified’s Superintendent Bill Kowba has issued a statement saying he apologizes and regrets the inaccuracies and misstatements in Dobbs’ interview. (via Voice of San Diego)
UPDATE #2: VOSD’s Scott Lewis has responded to this column. Be sure to see the comments.
Teahadist Trutherism on Presidential Shot
The President made a passing statement last week about shooting skeet out at Camp David, sending the tinfoil hats subset amongst gun rights advocates into a frenzy. It wasn’t the first time Obama has talked about shooting guns (He talked skeet shooting with the Women’s US Olympic Team several years back), but given the current hysteria about the ‘government coming to seize yer guns’, any gun talk was newsworthy. From Forbes:
Naturally, there will be no shortage of Republicans in the House of Representatives—or as I like to call it, junior high school—who will take to skeet shooting trutherism like Donald Trump takes to pretending that he would ever actually be allowed to purchase The New York Times.
Already, Tennessee Republican Congresswoman, Marcia Blackburn, has accused the president of bending the truth about his participating in the gun sport, telling Erin Burnett on CNN—
“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why has he not referenced it at any point in time as we have had this gun debate that is ongoing?”
Now that the White House has released a photo, this new class of trutherists is scrambling to get up to speed. You see, it’s all part of the grand Obama conspiracy. I forgot where I lifted this comment from, but it gives you the gist of what’s going on with the tin foil hat set:
Forget the timestamp crap. It is photoshopped. A)He’s not holding the gun right. B)If he’s shooting skeet, chances are he wouldn’t be shooting horizontally. C)Smoke doesn’t come out of shotguns like that. Obama held the gun (probably the first time he’s ever held one), had Souza take the photo, and photoshop did the rest.
‘As Dark and Bitter as the Future of American Journalism’
North Park Brewing has arrived on the scene, with national publicity on their bottling of “Unemployed Reporter Porter”. From the Nutmeg State on the east coast, via ct.com:
Jon Campbell, who briefly made Hartford a more interesting place with his presence and reporting for the Advocate, has entered the homebrew game with his signature Unemployed Reporter Porter (pictured).
“Porter style beers were first popularized in the nineteenth century by merchant sailors and manual dock laborers,” the label reads. “Unemployed Reporter is crafted in the same tradition, honoring a profession likewise doomed to decline and irrelevance.”
For this new class of “expendables,” the label goes on, “we’ve included chocolate and roasted barley malts that are as dark and bitter as the future of American journalism, and a high alcohol content designed to numb the pain of a slow, inexorable march toward obsolescence. While Unemployed Reporter is especially delicious as a breakfast beer, it’s still smooth enough to be enjoyed all day, every day. And let’s be honest: what else do you have going on?”
URP’s government warning label even manages to squeeze in a few choice digs at the industry: “(1) The Surgeon General says women shouldn’t drink alcohol during pregnancy, but between Gawker and the Huffington Post, hasn’t the act of procreation itself become a moral liability? (2) Drinking alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car, but it’s not like you have to wake up and drive to work tomorrow so fuck it.”
This new product has already drawn interest from as far away as the Dakotas. Witness this Tweet from the unfortunate soul charged with covering that neck of the woods for the Associated Press:
I will buy this. #UnemployedReporterBeer#ReporterProbs i.imgur.com/MFnxd8o.jpg
— Amber Hunt (@ReporterAmber) February 3, 2013
On This Day: 1938 – The play “Our Town”, by Thornton Wilder, opened in New York City. 1955 – James Brown recorded “Please Please Please.” 1974 – Patricia (Patty) Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Eat Fresh! Today’s Farmers’ Markets: Fallbrook (102 S. Main, at Alvarado) 10 am – 2 pm, Imperial Beach (Seacoast Dr. at Pier Plaza) 2 – 7:30 pm, Kearny Mesa (No. Island Credit Union pkg lot 5898 Copley) 10:30 am – 1:30 pm, La Mesa Village (Corner of Spring St. and University) 2 – 6 pm, Rancho Bernardo (Bernardo Winery parking lot 13330 Paseo del Verano Norte) 9 am – noon, Southeast San Diego(4981 Market St. West of Euclid Ave. Trolley Station) 2 – 6 pm
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JEC says
Mr. Dobbs is in the wrong job; besides demonstrating a lack of knowledge about education, raising questions about his qualifications, he clearly wants to make policy – run for the school Board Mr. Dobbs. His sound bites makes me wonder – what is his background, how did he get the job?
Scott Lewis says
As Voice of San Diego staff writers Will Carless and Lisa Halverstadt work on fact checks provoked by the Q&A with the CFO of the school district, the superintendent has responded and apologized for his “several factual errors.” We just sent an email alert.
The idea that we shouldn’t have published this interview or that “a word or two” of preface saying we would evaluate his claims in follow ups would assuage your anger about Dobbs’ statements is confusing to me. That the CFO said and thinks these things needed to get out there. The response generated by his comments will help inform followups, of which there will be many.
The situation was awkward. Normally, the person you’d turn to to help run the numbers from the district’s perspective would be the CFO.
Our biggest stories, and most explosive engagement have come from when we’ve unraveled official statements, or investigations over days or months. The idea that one Q&A would remain permanently etched as TRUTH without accountability or effective follow up, is not realistic, as this post from Doug Porter illustrates.
Will Carless instinctively knew that he needed to get an interview with the new CFO of the district. He worked on it for weeks and got it, planning on running it as a wonky Q&A.
I’m glad he did. And I’m interested to see what more we learn about the assertions the CFO made and what accountability he faces for them.
Scott Lewis
Voice of San Diego CEO
Brent E. Beltran says
And I wonder if VofSD has learned anything from this interview. I hope so but will doubt until I see otherwise.
Doug Porter says
I never said that VOSD shouldn’t run the interview. If VOSD ran an interview with the head of the KKK I’d say that’s news and you should do it.
What I argue is context. I knew Dobbs was full of it after simply scanning the story, before I hit google search. There are plenty of ways to indicate the old “raised eyebrow” and still let a subject talk.
I suspect you’d find a way to let your readers know that you didn’t vouch for the credibility of the KKK’s grand wazoo.
There are already people who should know better online claiming that the CFO was (for instance) ‘bombastic but accurate’.
I shouldn’t have to point out to you that there is a large and ever-growing body of mythology passed around as truth about government in general and SDUSD in particular.
Scott Lewis says
Who says he was “accurate”?
Doug Porter says
Anthony G. Manolatos @tonymanolatos
@vosdscott Bad cop — bombastic but accurate. The guy here to tell it like it is. That always leads to a little drama and some missteps, no?
Scott Lewis says
Oh, no that was a response to my question to Tony. He was saying that the Dobbs interview wasn’t a mistake. I asked if the supposed plan Tony was imagining was for Dobbs to give inaccurate information or accurate but bombastic. Tony’s saying there the latter.
As far as I can tell, Tony doesn’t dispute that the $92K is inaccurate.
VOSD has done thousands of Q&As in the past. Often with the same type of intro and then a long back and forth. And many fact checks have come from those Q&As.
In fact, straight interviews are pretty common in all types of media. And controversial interviews are often followed by many people wondering why the interviewer wasn’t harder on the subject. I’m obviously listening to your feedback but unsure why or how a word or two saying we’ll follow it up, like we always do, would have somehow made what you’re upset about OK.
Susan Duerksen says
Yes, 100s of people “literally, laying around” raised all kinds of questions. Do these employees get pillows? Have people been injured tripping over them? Is this interview maybe some kind of a joke?
Arthur Salm says
Re “I hear they’re ‘fact checking’ this story over at Voice of San Diego.”
In my experience, fact checking is done BEFORE a story runs. Or is that too Old School?
Scott Lewis says
This was an interview, a Q&A, like many newspapers, radio stations and magazines and others have run over the centuries. We’ve done thousands. By Fact Checking, we’re referring to our Fact Check Blog:
David says
With VOSD, its not the brand of bed they chose to get into, it’s who they chose to get into it with…
Frances O'Neill Zimmerman says
I have already commented at VOSD on two errors of substance in Will Carless’ gotcha interview of the school district’s brand-new chief financial officer Stan Dobbs — the same ones mentioned by many commenters at the site and today, by Superintendent Bill Kowba himself.
Does the VOSD education reporter need a bulletin?
1) Average annual teacher pay is MUCH LESS than $90,000+ and 2) there is a well-known, well-regarded Tennessee study showing that small classes DO improve student learning. (This calculated “ignorance” is not new: last year it took months of urging VOSD to correct its own glaring misstatement that we spend $15,000 annually per student, allegedly down from a previous even-higher figure. The correct amount is about $9669 per kid per year — low, as in not much money compared to most of the rest of the nation.)
I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Dobbs was led down the distinctly VOSD primrose path: the “education reporter” acts as if he knows nothing or has no background and, as someone here has noted, he challenged nothing that was said. In this instance, Carless basically let SDUSD’s CFO Dobbs hang himself. No wonky Q&A, this.
This “incendiary” converstion is predictably followed by outraged (and outrageous) commentary, promises of post-facto “fact-checks,” a special clarification from the Superintendent, and a defense of the “eduction reporter” from VOSD CEO Scott Lewis. Why does it feel like a set-up to make everybody down at the Board of Education look terrible?
Andy Cohen says
@ Scott Lewis:
This is one of those instances where the choice of format did not serve you well. I understand your assertion that it was a “Q&A” and that you wanted to allow the interviewee the freedom to tell it like it is, or at least as he seems to think it is.
This format would be fine if there weren’t so many factual errors or just plain incendiary rhetoric that was obviously designed to piss off half of the populace while sending the other half into a state of euphoric bliss at the prospect of killing public education.
I may not have the same journalistic credentials as Mr. Carless, but I’m pretty proud of the interviews that I’ve conducted for the OB Rag and the San Diego Free Press. I always try to have my facts straight before I publish a story like the one Mr. Carless did, and it’s the reason that I’ve chosen to avoid the straight Q&A format.
For example: Two years ago I sat down with Margaret Johnson, the principal at OB Elementary School. She gave me a whole lot of numbers to demonstrate how well the school was doing academically; how much the schools test scores have gone up since she had taken the reins. I could have left it at that, and merely quoted her and moved on. Instead, I took the time to go to the State Board of Education website and sift through the school evaluations myself. Verify the information that I was given, to make sure it wasn’t a fluff piece. That’s what a journalist is supposed to do. Turns out she was entirely accurate, and my research proved it. Without verifying those scores in addition to the previous years scores, merely regurgitating what she had said would have been pretty worthless.
In my interview with Bonnie Dumanis, she gave me all kinds of information that I thought was suspect. When I wrote the story, I quoted the information she had given me, but where I felt she was wrong, or where the facts did not support her assertions, I respectfully pointed that out.
When Annie Lane and I interviewed then Mayoral Candidate Bob Filner, we considered publishing it as a Q&A, but ultimately decided that the format would not serve our readers well, and would not allow us to challenge any factual misstatements that we might discover after the interview was over.
I fully understand that you don’t want to insult the subject of an interview by ripping him or her to shreds. Still, there is a way to write the story that treats the subject fairly, but calls into question erroneous statements and provides the correct information in the process. That’s being fair to your readers, who are ultimately more important than trying to please the CFO of the SDUSD.
The problem with Will Carless’ interview is that he left all of Mr. Dobbs’ assertions completely unchallenged, when most of those assertions were pretty easily and quickly debunked. That’s poor journalism, even if you intend to do a “series of fact checks” in the immediate future, and in my opinion it’s a disservice to your readers.
If your intent was to stir the pot, then congratulations! You’ve succeeded! But in my opinion you have failed in actually educating your readers in providing actual facts instead of World Net Daily-esque rhetoric.
Scott Lewis says
Thanks for the thoughts. I guess I don’t see a narrative beginning and ending with one post. The internet allows us to tell stories over time, to have readers help inform what needs to be looked into further and push us.
What the chief financial officer of a district this big says is important and needs to be distributed. I think of this the same as if we were a radio station. We aired an interview and it’s caused a stir and we have a duty to hold him accountable.
This was a transcription of an interview, not World Net Daily conjecture. What he said was not some kind of conclusion we were making.
That said, I understand your point and will consider it.
Andy Cohen says
The trouble is, Scott, that in the particular format you chose your failure to refute any of Mr. Dobbs’ asserted “facts” is a tacit endorsement of their validity, whether that was your intention or not. Your readers are left with the impression that you are affirming what he said was absolutely true. That’s borne out in the comments section.
Your readers shouldn’t have to wait a week or two to find out otherwise. You’ve also left it out there for anti-union, anti-public education forces and privatization advocates to refer to the story to back their position. That’s irresponsible.
Christian Slade says
If you look at VOSD’s contributors and editors there is a preponderance of youthfulness. As a matter of fact none of the faces look past the ripe old age of 30. Therein may be the problem.
Doug Porter says
I am older than dirt according to my teenaged daughter. And I can say with all the authority that goes with such an accomplishment that screwups, stupidity and silliness are not limited to any age group.
Randy Dotinga says
Several VOSD journalists are at or beyond the ages that Woodward & Bernstein were when they uncovered Watergate.
Young journalists often make up for their lack of experience with enthusiasm, work ethic and aggressiveness, which many of their grizzled elders lost or never had.
This dog (your age-ism) don’t hunt. Perhaps you’d like to embrace the Grand San Diego Media Conspiracy/Black Helicopters theory, which is all the rage. (That’s Irwin Jacobs on the grassy knoll!)
Christian Slade says
Ok, I stand corrected on a few counts but maybe not too far off the mark. It does look like most of the writing staff are in their early years. Nothing wrong with eary years and enthusiasm, don’t get me wrong. Just saying a mix in the age of the contributors may help avoid the ‘irresponsibility’ a commentor made above. And Doug, you prove my point. You write articles here on SDFP and as you say, google and fact check first.
Christian Slade says
Here’s another good comment on the Voice of San Diego interview with new SDUSD CFO . It comes from The Breakfast Club Action Groups blog. (it’s actually a comment on a comment)
Comment from an awesome parent. “It’s good to have a range of viewpoints and new insights such as all those excess employees “every damn where” just “[l]iterally, laying around.” This is very helpful to the decision making process. Almost as helpful as an “investigative journalist” who lays his bias plain with his thinly veiled reference to how little teachers work. For the record, these teachers aren’t laying around. They’re LYING around. Yes, those lazy, good for nothing, on-the-dole, doin’-it-for-the-riches teachers are lying around. Literally. I see them when I drop my kid at school everyday. In fact, I have to step over their bodies as I make my way to my child’s classroom. It’s like a warzone out there! Just this morning, I had to roll my daughter’s teacher out of the doorway so we could get into her classroom.”
Randy Dotinga says
Au contraire!
It’s quite correct that teachers spend the day “laying around.”
They lay papers on desks. And report cards. And tests.
And during recess, they lay their heads on their desks and dream about drinking an entire box of wine when they get home.
Fact Check: the claim is true!
-Randy
Christian Slade says
ha, nice of you to fact check since ppl may not believe it if you hadn’t. I think teachers do dream of wine and vacations and retirement and maybe chocolate. They are human, after all.