Reading Eagle ignores truth: Berks would be healthier if it wasn’t for Reading

By Steve Reinbrecht

The Reading Eagle’s story about Berks Countians' generally fine health – collectively ranked 20th of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties -- is good news for most of us.

However, though the story appears to examine how to have even better health care in Berks County, it never tells the truth – that the surest way would be to help poor people get better health care.

As you’d guess, the health measures in Reading, which is the hole in the Berks County doughnut, are significantly worse than for Berks County overall, according to a 2013 health assessment about Berks County.

But the 847-word Reading Eagle story mentions “Reading” only once, in the term “Reading Health System,” which is in West Reading.

It’s clear that the list of how better health care for the poorest of us would benefit all of us is long – everything from shinier economic-development appeal to smarter kids, fewer missed work days, lower insurance costs, all the way to spotting scary diseases like measles, or worse, as early as possible.

The 2013 health assessment says that city residents, blacks and Latinos are in poorer overall health, are more likely to be obese and are more likely to have diabetes, high blood pressure, or a mental health condition than other residents. It also says many low-income residents also suffer poor health in many smaller suburban and rural areas.

The assessment also recommends a health department. Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach, a conservative who I imagine wants a small government, voted in January to make Berks the first county in the state to have its own department of agriculture.

Reading Eagle insults its readers [and many, many non-readers] with attempt to cover social injustice

by Steve Reinbrecht
Our multi-award-winning local newspaper, The Reading Eagle, continues to show that it is clueless about covering important social issues with its front-page story Sunday, “Special Report: Mass Incarceration.”

A glance at this awfully insensitive and moronic headline on the sidebar demonstrates that the news staff is in over its head. Former Eagle copy chiefs must be spinning in their graves or dreaming of cold ale.


Take a close look at the entire main article, though, as intelligent readers should, and you can see that this story would get a C- in any composition course.

First, what’s the purpose?

A) Examine the injustice of racially discriminatory incarcerations.

B) Examine the problems caused by America putting a higher percentage of people in jail than every country except China and Iran.

C) Sell papers by publishing a voyeuristic story [with a cheerful ending] about the very troubled life of a middle-aged black convict who discovered his mother’s dead body when he was 9 and went on to deal with violence, crack addiction, childhood sex abuse and 18 siblings.

D) Get a head start on next year’s Keystone prizes.

And what’s the news? God, wouldn’t it be scary if the Eagle newsroom just found out that “mass incarceration of people with such backgrounds, most of them minorities, has become a national issue”? 

But it wouldn’t be a surprise, looking at the homogenous group of Eagle award winners.

A good local newspaper would explore this subject HERE IN BERKS COUNTY.

Anybody can get the statistics about the Berks County Jail and learn Excel to crunch them. 

The Eagle could inform readers if a higher or lower rate of black men are locked up in our community, compared to the state or America or similar counties.

Or it could trace the numbers over time to see if they are getting better or worse here in Berks.

Then it could ask District Attorney John Adams, who is responsible for putting people in jail in Berks, if it is a problem here.

It could ask Reading Police Chief Bill Heim if his officers are arresting too many black men just because they are black.

It could write about drug-abuse treatment options. Are there waiting lists? If there is a demand, why aren’t there more? How many methadone centers are there?

The Eagle’s list of causes for mass incarceration sound like a bad Wikipedia article: lack of role models, lack of home learning, missing parents, sex abuse as a child, drug abuse, the war on drugs, and “untreated mental health issues.”

The Eagle does take pains to be fair about all this:

“Conventional wisdom sometimes indicts Republicans as chief promoters of mass incarceration. Angus Love, executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which provides legal assistance to inmates in civil cases, said Democrats are equally to blame.”

“ 'This mass incarceration movement wouldn't have happened without their assistance,’ " Love said.

If you want a good article about mass incarceration, try “Why mass incarceration defines us as a society."

It’s about Bryan Stevenson, who fought to bar mandatory life sentences without parole for minors. 

Here's the Eagle's take on that idea:

Cowardly publisher refuses to let public criticize Reading Eagle’s news judgment

By Steve Reinbrecht

The Reading Eagle published most of a letter I wrote to question its news judgment in covering local health stories.

I pointed out its front-page story about Caron’s plans for a 20-bed, $10 million addiction center, and asked why the newspaper has virtually ignored efforts to start a community health center in the city to serve thousands of poor people.

After I e-mailed my letter to the newsroom, editor Jim Homan called me.

“I can’t use the portion where you’re questioning our news judgment,” Homan told me, even though that was the point. “The publisher will not allow that.”

Here’s the part they took out:

I don’t understand the news judgment here. Why does the paper feature a boutique center that I expect will serve mostly wealthy people, perhaps from all over the country or world, rather than something that will more effectively improve the health of the entire community? 

In his column Sunday, managing editor Harry Deitz writes about how unnamed critics so misunderstand the news business.

“Our simple agenda is to make our community a better place to live,” he writes.

But by ignoring the real issues, the paper shows that its simple agenda is actually making money and pleasing the Establishment by avoiding controversy.