I often learn more news about Berks County from Google alerts and Facebook than I do from the Reading Eagle pseudo-newspaper.
Some recent examples:
Cultural sensitivity? Did you know that Ramadan has started? Other local newspapers realize the importance and help explain the holiday to non-Muslims, but not the Reading Eagle. Not that the Eagle is shy about religion – if it’s the Christian kind. Its Christmas coverage goes on ad nauseum for days, and it carries a daily Bible verse and weekly columns about local churches. But Ramadan? Meh.
Hundreds if not thousands of Muslims live in Berks, and many families worship at its two Islamic centers. If you haven’t noticed, Muslims have been in the news a lot lately, often the victims of misperception, prejudice and stigma. Often it’s the media that maintain the misperception, prejudice and stigma. Other local news organizations had stories last week.
The Reading mayoral election? Al Walentis, not the award-winning Reading Eagle, broke the news on his blog about retailer Al Boscov providing $70,000 to Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer for his campaign:
“It shows that the Albert Boscov money spigot is at full guzzle feeding the mayor's campaign coffers. Naturally, some might question whether one individual should have such influence in a municipal election. What might Albert Boscov be hoping for in return?”
When the Eagle editors thought they had figured out how to spin the story without embarrassing Boscov, a major advertiser and de facto but untrained city planner, the result was pathetic.
Deportations? I didn’t see anything in the Eagle about a judge’s dramatic order June 19 to stop the deportation of a woman and her child from a Berks detention center. But other media have the fascinating story.
“A U.S. Court of Appeals judge has ordered U.S. officials to intercept a mother and her 12-year-old daughter on a plane Friday being deported to Guatemala and immediately return them to the United States.
“The 34-year-old mother, Ana, and her daughter were woken up at 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday and pulled from their rooms at a [Berks] Pennsylvania family detention center, where they had been living for over a year, said her attorney, Bridget Cambria. By 10 a.m., the two were placed on a plane flying to Panama City, where they would catch a second flight to Guatemala City.
“In a rare move that will likely draw more attention to the controversial practice of family detention, Chief Judge Theodore A. McKee of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. officials to stop Ana and her daughter when they arrive in Guatemala City and immediately return them to the United States."
The Reading Eagle’s journalism produced this headline about the center, which it had ignored for years: “Berks County Residential Center: 'family friendly' or 'bad'?”
Pedestrian killed? I first learned that a woman had been killed on Route 422 in Lower Heidelberg Township on Facebook. Other news media identify her and talk of a fight and bikers at a barbecue joint. The Eagle can’t get the story because its reporters no longer seem to develop sources. I can’t remember the coroner’s office not releasing basic info if the police won’t. The Eagle’s lack of credibility has injured it.
Same with a story about possibly contaminated water at a Berks bottling company. A warning from the state came out June 19; nothing in the Eagle as of Sunday night, June 21.
How about this: Police say 30-year-old former teacher Jonathan Ruppert of Hamburg sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student in a Lebanon High School classroom in April.
You can read about it everywhere but the Reading Eagle, because although it LOOKS like a newspaper, it really isn’t one.
One great thing about America is that we have the right to say “No!” when government agents want to, or are ordered to, search our houses and vehicles.
In 2014, Pennsylvania’s top judges decided that cops don’t need to convince a judge to sign a warrant to search your car.
But as far as I know they still need a warrant to get around the Fourth Amendment and search your house without your permission.
And because we rely on the news media to be the watchdog for our rights, reporters who write about police searching homes should always find out why the police were allowed to do the search.
On June 16, the Reading Eagle had a story about Spring Township police arresting two 20-something brothers after finding 2 pounds of marijuana, guns and $3,000 in their home.
“Detective Steve Brock said the search of the residence was conducted June 2 after investigators responded to complaints from residents about suspected illegal drug activity.”
We’re all glad these pot dealers were busted, because their guns were really dangerous. Though now their disappointed customers might have to turn to smoking bath salts or toxic synthetic "marijuana," or alcohol or other Establishment-approved anti-depressants.
But this is where the rubber hits the road with respect to the Big Question of government: How to balance the rights of the individual with the good of society?
This is the exact spot where I want my local media to shine their lights upon, for us all to see exactly how public-safety policy is working. No need to remind you that police behavior is generally under scrutiny lately.
The Eagle reporter should have reported:
• Did the suspects give permission to search?
• Did the police get a search warrant?
• If they did, who was the judge?
• What was the “probable cause,” the reasons why the police believe a crime was probably committed?
• Are reports by suspicious neighbors enough to get a search warrant? The story suggests it is.
In an e-mail, Detective Brock told me: “The incident was based off citizen complaints about drug activity at the residence. The search of the residence was consensual.”
I bet he would have explained it to the Eagle reporter.
Of course, most of us are very law-abiding and never have contraband. So what’s the big fuss? An editor, Dave Warner, once told me it’s the oozing stories – where something slowly, apparently innocently creeps into the world – that are more important than the breaking-news stories.
By publicizing the oozing signs of the erosion of human rights, better journalism could have benefited many societies in the world that are in trouble now. But of course the Establishment leaders always get control of the media and use them for their agendas, not to publish truth.
In the New World Order, when I am appointed editor of the Reading Eagle, I will insist that reporters always ask police chiefs the reasons their officers search pockets, homes and vehicles.
Once I went, as the managing editor of bctv.org, to the state police headquarters for a forum on trooper-journalist relations. I told the room full of troopers and mostly TV reporters that news releases about vehicle stops should always include the probable cause.
I was quickly surrounded by in-leaning troopers decrying my attack on their ability to do their job. Later, one trooper more gently told me that frankly, people are ignorant of their rights and will quickly consent to a search of their vehicle, and that police depend on this to save themselves a lot of trouble.
I don’t really think the police in Berks are doing anything wrong. They are doing their jobs.
But the Reading Eagle newspaper is not doing its job.
Pedestrian killed? I first learned that a woman had been killed on Route 422 in Lower Heidelberg Township on Facebook. Other news media identify her and talk of a fight and bikers at a barbecue joint. The Eagle can’t get the story because its reporters no longer seem to develop sources. I can’t remember the coroner’s office not releasing basic info if the police won’t. The Eagle’s lack of credibility has injured it.
