One Adirondack journalist ignores objectivity
Stefanik was once called 'childless,' too
Dan McClelland, who has run the Tupper Lake Free Press for 47 years, practices some of the best small-town journalism and some of the worst.
I’ve known Dan a little bit for decades. My father owned and ran the daily paper in Saranac Lake for many years, and, working there off and on, I got to know the other journalists in the Tri-Lakes.
A story by Lauren Yates this past week in Adirondack Explorer details McClelland’s dedication to Tupper Lake and his refusal to abide by the norms of journalism, such as reporting all relevant aspects of a story.
Yates quotes McClelland: “I used the paper, from the very beginning, as a cheerleader for the community — to promote the good things here, to try to bring things here that would help the town. I haven’t been a journalist as much as I’ve been a promoter.”
Promoting good things has included leaving out bad things. McClelland has chosen, for example, not to include in the Free Press a standard feature of small-town papers, the local police blotter.
Because the Free Press is a tiny weekly paper run by a handful of people, McClelland has taken on many roles, including writing opinion pieces for the editorial page and news stories for Page 1. But he hasn’t made the necessary distinction between the two.
About his reporting on the fight over a proposal for a resort and housing development, McClelland told Yates, “One of the environmental groups one time said, ‘You’re not being fair, you’re not letting us tell our side.’ And I said, ‘No — because it’s my newspaper, and I don’t care what you think. You’re not from Tupper Lake …’ I didn’t want to give them a voice in my newspaper because they didn’t deserve that voice. They were interfering with our lives here.”
McClelland has the right to run his paper his way, but tailoring news stories to fit his opinions does a disservice to his community. Journalism is critical to the functioning of a democracy, but only to the extent it seeks to report the full truth.
I know how hard it is to put out a small community newspaper. I, too, as a reporter and editor in Saranac Lake and Malone, had to write both news stories and opinion pieces, and I’m awed by McClelland’s endurance over the decades in churning out miles of copy and publishing thousands of issues.
But I’m flabbergasted by his cavalier trashing of a newspaper’s essential mission — to reflect a community back at its readers, so they can see what is good and what isn’t. How do people know if their town has a DWI problem or a domestic violence problem or a child abuse problem if their paper isn’t running arrests?
How can people make an informed decision about a large development project if the paper is acting as a promoter for the developer?
McClelland’s coverage does a lot of good, despite his embrace of subjectivity and defense of unfairness. The Free Press knits Tupper Lake together by printing student accomplishments and family milestones — the “local kid makes good” articles and the births and deaths and weddings, honor rolls and business openings and closings.
But his insistence on skewing his news coverage to favor the viewpoint he considers right is the same strategy followed by larger media companies — most notably, Fox News — that has nurtured divisiveness and led to widespread public misunderstanding of events.
Learning new things is one of the pleasures of journalism, but that can happen only if the story is discovered through reporting, not if its shape and thrust are predetermined to fit an agenda.
Commentary has its place (like Substack!), but communities across the country are starving for news coverage informed by the rules of modern journalism to find and publish the truth. That is what makes journalism worth doing. That is why it’s a better job than delivering pizzas, even if the money is about the same.
It’s a shame a reporter and editor like Dan McClelland, so hard-working and so devoted to his community, is skewing news stories to steer readers into opinions he believes they ought to hold.
He has accomplished so much, but in the most important way, he has been doing it wrong.
Speaking of ethics
I’ve been debating making a small contribution to Kamala Harris’ campaign, maybe $25. If she winds up as the Democratic nominee, which now seems almost certain, I intend to vote for her and don’t see why I shouldn’t make a financial contribution as well.
Back when I was working at the Post-Star, donating to politicians was prohibited for editors (reporters, too, I believe, at least those that were covering politics). We were allowed to vote, but voting is private. Putting your political views on public display through a campaign donation or participation in a candidate’s rally could interfere with a reporter’s ability to appear professionally nonpartisan and lead to questions of fairness in the paper’s coverage.
Now that I’m working here, on Substack, and promoting my politics on a regular basis, it seems silly to assert a separation between my private views and my public work. Or is it? I can’t entirely escape the habits of a lifetime, so as much as I want Harris to win and Trump to lose, I hesitate to back that up with cash.
Some reporters take a commitment to neutrality too far. Over the years, I’ve read several virtue-signaling columns by journalists (Chris Cilizza, Jimmy Vielkind and Len Downie come to mind) who said they abstain from voting to give themselves more professional distance from their subject. That is stupid.
The notion that journalists should refuse to vote so no shadow of personal interest, however dim, intrudes on their work can be filed under “taking yourself too seriously.”
Children
In 2021, at about the same time J.D. Vance was calling Democratic politicians like Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “childless cat ladies,” a local blogger for the Times Union was being criticized by Elise Stefanik for calling her “childless.”
The blog post was a parody, imagining a scenario in which Stefanik was reading a story to kids. It included this line: “I myself am childless because I am a rising star in the Republican Party, and family planning is possible by way of the contraception paid for by my excellent taxpayer-provided healthcare plan.”
Vance’s statement was not a parody and not meant to be funny. Here is what he said: "We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.
"How does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?”
Here is what Stefanik said when she was called “childless:”
“As a young couple, we have developed a thick skin over many years as we have become accustomed to repeated sexist smears in media coverage. However, the Times Union’s decision to publish an article that mocked us as ‘childless’ is a new low and is truly heinous and wildly inappropriate.
“The shameful statement is not only inherently sexist, but also hateful, abusive, and heartless. The Times Union publisher, editors, and staff have clearly let the paper’s standards sink so low that they have chosen to embrace sexist scum and content under the masthead. They should be ashamed.”
Ironically, Stefanik gave birth to a baby boy several months later.
I hope she sticks up for Harris with a touch of the vehemence she felt for herself. Even if she doesn’t, she has let everyone know her strong feelings about the wrongness of calling a woman “childless,” and it’s fair to conclude she considers Vance, too, “hateful, abusive and heartless,” as well as “sexist scum.”
Camouflage
I took some photos of camouflaged creatures recently while we were walking in Crandall Park. See if you can spot them.
This frog was bathing at the edge of the big pond, by Glen Street. The photo was taken from the sidewalk where it runs along the pond.
This frog found even better concealment in the opposite end of the pond, where it is divided by the road through the park.
This bird just about disappears on a branch in the trees along the road near the pavilion.
This group on the prowl we spotted while in Lake George last Sunday. Rather than trying to hide in the natural surroundings, they blend in with each other, finding safety in numbers:
It's not fair to conclude that Stefanik would repudiate Vance for his ridiculous, outrageous comments. Her track record tells otherwise. The fact that she mindlessly and repeatedly defends Donald Trump's statements and actions suggests that, sadly, she lost her moral compass long ago.
"How does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?” (JD Vance)
This statement, made by Vance when he was a candidate for the Ohio Senate seat just a few years back, is also an example of camouflage. It’s a dogwhistle for those who wish to disenfranchise some groups of people, a veiled attack of immigration, and a subtle (maybe not so subtle) attempt to “other” a political opponent, hidden behind the cloak of populist-driven "patriotism."
This is one of many examples from the Trump/Vance campaign we'll see in the coming weeks. See if you can spot them.