THE BIG STORY

 

Mayoral Election Bias

 

BY RICK BOETTGER

 

     The embarrassing finish to Key West's Hometown PAC's call to candidates led to vastly different reporting here and in the daily paper. In our E-Blast, I reported that Hometown blundered, by having Tony Yaniz challenged to stop speaking when he joked that he had decided not to run. My point was that the forum had plainly encouraged Tony and anyone else who was, in their words, “testing the waters,” to show up and speak.

     The daily paper blamed it all on Tony, denigrating him nine times, and reporting 39 words of his speech. Mayor Craig Cates got not a word of criticism, while they reported 95 words of his speech. They also chose a photo of Tony appearing angry with moderator Todd German, who seems to be trying to take the microphone away from Tony.

     I call this bias. And hey, having different political opinions is more than okay, it can lead to a lively investigation of the differences between candidates. I am upfront about my preference for Tony over Craig. It's based purely on the issues. One was the two-waying of the Boulevard, which Tony fought for and Craig opposed. Another, of many, is challenging the city staff, which Tony does and Craig doesn't. I written about these issues in the past and will do so in the future.

     So there I stand. It's my opinion, under my byline. The daily paper has foresworn not only editorially endorsing anyone, but bans signed letters to the editor discussing candidates for office. However, they do print the worst kind of advocacy: unsigned personal attacks in their Citizen's Voice column. Far worse than a board editorial, or signed letters to the editor, they print attacks that are not only anonymous, but secretly chosen from who-knows-what range of comments that were submitted.

     It is already common knowledge that the Voice stopped printing anti-dredging submissions when they began to reflect the overwhelming majority against dredging, as proven by the 3-1 vote in the referendum. They currently print far more Voice submissions critical of Tony than of Craig. And we the people not only have no idea who has written them, but how prejudcially selective they are of the submissions. They could blog all submissions, but there is no Sunshine Law for the media, and they don't.

     As to the PAC event, I stand by my reporting. Hometown should apologize for letting a sitting public official, who took them at their word to speak while he is “testing the waters,” be challenged on the dais, where he was heckled and booed without any comment or censure of this bad behavior. People complaining of Tony's public conflicts with the mayor should have leaped up in outrage (Teri Johnston?) after witnessing the appalling behavior of Cates' supporters.

     I've attended a lot of these events, and I have never seen heckles and boos, much less an attempt to muzzle an invited potential candidate. I am saddened especially by the fact that the esteemed Todd German, a friend I have worked well with in the past, was in charge, and primarily responsible for not letting the civil meeting descend into ignominy.

     A particular problem is that Todd is on the Editorial Board of the daily paper. The paper is clearly pro-Cates in its Voice column, and in the clearly prejudicial reporting of this event in particular. They report Tony was “booed and heckled,” he “refused” to declare, he “insult[ed] the mayor,” he told the mayor to “Man up!”, he does “bully stuff,” he tried to “recover,” and still got “a chorus of boos.”

     Can you imagine how the reporting would have gone if Tony's supporters treated Craig so atrociously? The headline would not have been, “Crowd boos Craig Gates.” It would have been something like, “Yaniz Supporters Act Badly.”

     I also wonder if Todd would have let challenges to stop talking, heckles, and boos to go unremarked by Hometown had it been Craig so suffering. Todd is compromised by his important relation with a clearly biased but undeclared newspaper. I don't know why he would want to keep both roles.http://konknet.com/konk-life/contributors/rick-boettger

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