WWAY-TV and ethics: it's worse than I thought

As I wrote not long ago, I really don't look for reasons to write about the people at WWAY, but they seem to try really hard to give them to me.

This is just stunning. Stunning actually doesn't begin to describe my reaction - I wrote earlier about a "news" story about a company award won by the local BMW dealer, but even then I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, and thought perhaps it was just an ethical slip on the part of some junior members of the sales and/or news staff, perhaps born of inexperience. And I thought, when I wrote earlier about "Dancing with WWAY," that it was nothing more than one of the stupidest sweeps series I ever saw.

WWAY TO GO: LIVE, LOCAL, INTERACTIVE
But no, as this article published on TVNewsday, a subscription-only trade website (but almost certainly mostly written by WWAY staff themselves) brags loudly and lustily, they are proud of the success of a new plan to completely disregard the separation between sales and news. The article even reports that the ridiculous failure (as a news series at least) "Dancing with WWAY" earned them $5,500 for that ethical breach. I don't have time to go into the Mother's and Father's Day promotions, which were equally stupid if not quite so annoying, and apparently just as unethical.

Weatherman Chris Phillips was a good sport about it, but nonetheless seemed rather pained to be participating in "Dancing" even before he was actually injured and had to sit out the rest of the "contest." Stephanie Beecken, on the other hand, threw her entire talentless self into it. While it is probably accurate to describe him as one of "two of our most popular news talent," how on earth could they include her in that?

Even after the pretty much complete turnover of the newsroom over the past year, it is ludicrous to claim that yet another imported bottle blonde is even familiar to anyone in Wilmington, much less "popular," after three months here. I had felt sorry for her up till then, definitely including her in the list of those I mentioned earlier who arrive here on their "first or second jobs out of college and spending one contract term here working for their big break somewhere else, or showing us and themselves why they don't have what it takes to get any further." While I wasn't thinking of her specifically when I wrote that, she is definitely in the latter camp. The only talent I have observed in her thus far is an entirely uncalled-for self-esteem. She wasn't bad at the dancing, but who gives a flying flip about that? I just noticed on the WWAY website (no link in order not to give them more traffic to brag about) that even after his injury, Chris still somehow won the contest - that would pretty well underscore the lack of "popularity," then, wouldn't it?

Getting back to the real subject here, the ethical impropriety of selling a news series, I am basically flabbergasted. The slogan "Live, Local, Interactive" doesn't mean that you do news items just for the sake of getting ad revenue out of a sponsor. I used to say that perhaps it's OK to solicit and credit donations of clothing, decorations and services for the news set and anchors, but apparently that was the slippery slope that let these people end up in the ethical swamp at the bottom of anyone's acceptable news ethics guidelines.

They should be ashamed, and in another day, they would be facing FCC investigation, I truly believe.

In case you think I'm exaggerating the absolute wrongness of this practice, see this article on the website of the Poynter Institute, acknowledged as one of the leading sources of journalistic guidance. The article is three years old, but I can't imagine that the wall between news and sales that had existed for decades has fallen in that period of time. Here's the best, most applicable, quote, with my emphasis added:

Candy Altman also views these challenges from the corporate level as vice president of news for Hearst-Argyle Television. She says the news/sales line ethical dilemma "continues to raise its ugly head."

"Thankfully, our company is very clear on this issue," Altman says, "but I still hear horror stories about deals being made to sell news content that should not be for sale."

(I'm pasting this entire article below in case WWAY realizes that this isn't something they want to brag about, and takes it off their website. I've added emphasis on the key points mentioned above.)

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald: WWAY TO GO: LIVE, LOCAL, INTERACTIVE
TVNEWSDAY, May. 21, 6:21 AM ET

The ABC affiliate in Wilmington, N.C., is finding success with "just right" promotions that involve viewers and rely on the humblest of new media—e-mail.

By Arthur Greenwald

When it comes to new media, small- and medium-market stations face the classic Three Bears dilemma.

Too few interactive features make a station look dated and permit competitors to gobble up online advertisers.

But too much fancy digital content can waste money and staff time, while delivering a minimal boost to ratings and revenue.

But those clever Goldilocks at WWAY in Wilmington, N.C., have got it just right. The Morris Multimedia ABC affiliate has branded itself as WWAY-TV3: Live, Local, Interactive! They achieve all three with a smart and selective combination of old and new media.

To make certain the station lives up to its slogan, General Manager Andy Combs ordered his team to scrutinize every daypart for opportunities to add a local slant and, when possible, an interactive twist. But there was a catch. Combs insisted that each innovation prove cost-effective.

That was just fine with News Director/Senior Strategist Jack Pagano, who set about refreshing both the station’s newscasts and Web site with the most tried-and-true of all "new media"—e-mail.

"We invite viewers to comment on every story, and they certainly have a lot to say," says Pagano. "We’ve been able to build viewer opinions right into the newscasts, in the form of e-mail [excerpts] and direct viewer polls. (Click here and see what WWAY viewers say about immigration reform and other stories.)

"It worked so well," adds Internet Sales and Marketing Director Charlie Bragg, "that we wanted to see what we could do with ABC primetime."

Not long ago, MarketShare asked why more ABC affiliates weren’t leveraging the network’s solid success with Dancing With The Stars. It turns out that this ABC affiliate was, well, WWAY ahead of us.

"We created Dancing With WWAY," says Bragg, "and we built it around two of our most popular news talent: meteorologist Chris Phillips and reporter Stephanie Beecken." In fact, Phillips and Beecken are the only contestants, locked in a running battle for weekly bragging rights.

Although the newsroom colleagues dance in tandem, "our viewers decide each week who"s the better dancer," explains Pagano. "Chris and Stephanie have to learn the same steps as the primetime contestants."

Making sure they do is Babs McDance, a local dance studio and social hall that Bragg quickly signed up as a series sponsor. "Neither was an especially good dancer before starting lessons," says Bragg. "So viewers could really appreciate their progress as they followed along at home."

And follow they did, thanks to weekly news features, which Internet Director Chase Clark repurposed as online videos on a dedicated Web page. Viewer response was so enthusiastic that tomorrow (May 22) the station will celebrate the season finale of Dancing With The Stars with a live event. All of Wilmington is invited to the Babs McDance studio to applaud ABC’s primetime winner and, more important, to cheer on Phillips and Beecken in their final face-off.

It’s like a combination of a local contest and an Oscar Night Party," crows Pagano. "We’ve even lined up another sponsor, Chelsea’s Wine Bar and Eatery, which is donating refreshments for attendees, just as Babs McDance is donating the location."

Whoever triumphs, WWAY has taken steps to ensure that the real winner is Wilmington. In lieu of tickets, viewers are asked to make a donation at the door. "One hundred percent of the proceeds go to the Lower Cape Fear Hospice," says Pagano, who predicts hundreds of attendees.

According to Bragg, this promotion netted the station around $5,500 in new revenue, on air and online, from Babs McDance alone, not bad for the 136th DMA. The station earned added value in the form of increased viewer interest in the newscast and online. There was even a bonus effect: it seems that eavesdropping on Chris and Stephanie’s lessons inspired WWAY viewers to get up and try it themselves.

"We heard from several senior citizen homes that residents were imitating the steps on their own, and even demanding dance lessons," says Pagano. "Naturally we sent out our crews and got some very nice feature stories."

Indeed, the viewer response to Dancing with WWAY was so encouraging that midway through the promotion, the station quickly scheduled another: a Queen For A Day-style campaign with an interactive twist they called Make Your Mother’s Day.

Jump-started with an appealing promo shot at a local elementary school, the campaign invited viewers of all ages to write to the station and explain why their moms deserved a day of luxury. Over 150 responses soon followed, mostly by e-mail, but some by fax and regular mail.

Charlie Bragg’s team made sure that Wilmington’s Top Mom was showered in prizes, provided by the six local sponsors who also spent a collective $3,500 on airtime and online ads.

The station received so many thoughtful entries that despite many hours of overtime, the newsroom staff was hard-pressed to select just one winner. But choose they did, along with six runners-up who received large bouquets, thanks to the extra generosity of one of the sponsors, Azalea Coast Florist.

(See the Make Your Mother’s Day Promo and winning entries by clicking here.)

Just like Dancing With WWAY, the Mother’s Day promotion resulted in a big boost to the station’s Web traffic. So much so that they’re ready to launch a third promotion for—you guessed it—Father’s Day. But the deadline will be a few days earlier so they can once again compliment a Web-based contest with traditional TV production.

"We plan to surprise the winner by presenting the prizes during our newscast." says Pagano. "We’ll knock on the winner’s door and surprise him live on the air."

Which could lead to yet another interactive feature on administering CPR to a shocked father.

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald focuses on successful station promotions of every shape and size. Have you produced the Mother of All Marketing Campaigns? Don’t keep it a secret. Let us share your success with your colleagues around the country. Write to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.

Leaping before an onrushing train

RE: Leaping before an onrushing train

This is a very interesting trend. However, I will quibble with your use of the statistic of the number of suicides in Japan vs. the U.S. Raw numbers from one country to the next rarely make for a meaningful comparison - while the rate, dividing the number into the population, does.

I also disagree strongly with your apparent alarm about families who receive a 'sizable insurance payout' from a train-track suicide being required to pay for the resulting delays. Who would you prefer to pay? And why would we not want to give those hellbent on self-destruction, and who are also insured in order to provide a reward for it to their survivors, a good reason to avoid flinging themselves in front of a train? I would think any way to reduce that particular method would be welcome. Carbon monoxide in a parked car isn't pretty, but only a very tiny number of first responders and/or family members are traumatized by it, while hundreds or thousands witness the train-flingings and many thousands are affected by the resulting delays.

Jousting a little with a much brighter light

G.D. Gearino, the late lamented columnist at the News & Observer, on his website Words Assembled Well, makes a couple of interesting points today about the Nifong spectacle and about journalists and political contributions. He is a heavyweight in the world of verbal sparring, but I don't mind a quick turn in the ring with him. Fortunately, I don't particularly disagree so it's not a real fight, more like trying to keep up the rhythm he started at the speed bag. (That was a long and interesting boxing metaphor, especially when you consider I detest boxing.)

Here's my reply to his post:

Thank you for making clear a mostly unmentioned meaning of the Nifong spectacle. I'm still too mad, and mulling over what how many others have to say about the lacrosse/Gell (as a glaring example, of course not the only instance) conundrum, to have written about it myself. Clearly, the impact of the prosecutorial misconduct is more severe in capital cases - but I believe that ardent supporters of the lacrosse players labor under the worldview wherein people of their class suffer equally, when they are inconvenienced or discomforted temporarily, as do lesser mortals when they are executed or incarcerated wrongfully for the bulk of their adulthood. There is a real belief that people of their station in life are of inherently higher value, and infinitely higher sensitivity. The same dichotomy is also visible to a more ridiculous extent in the discussions of the "persecution" of Paris Hilton.

I would quibble mildly with your assessment of the media political contributions. Don't most media employers prohibit any political activity, certainly including participating in a campaign in any way, on the part of the journalists (if not all employees) in their employ? I find it conceivable that people with strong political views hindered from expressing them in that most visceral of ways, by giving their own money to a candidate who they believe will pursue their views, may be more likely to sublimate those views in their work - not necessarily intentionally, but perhaps with the same result.

While most journalists adhere to the credo of objectivity, and many try hard to remain apolitical, things do change from the beginning of a career through the later years of it. Living and observing and caring all lead to the formation of beliefs more basic to one's being than mere opinion about current events - and while you have said you are a conservative and I definitely am not, I think we both, along with many others who use words to make a living, have no choice but to reflect our beliefs.

That said, I do tend to disagree that there is a liberal media bias - the values of the journalists being nicely balanced, and perhaps overbalanced, by the views of their corporate employers. And I don't think an analysis of media member's political contributions can prove it either way, because of the ban on contributions I mention above.

Product placement works - on WWAY news

I truly do not look for reasons to pick on WWAY. But the news item I saw last night about the local BMW dealer earning a 2007 "Center of Excellence Award" - from BMW, not some objective outside party - is the single worst instance of pandering I've ever seen.

I can't provide a link to the story, as they had the good sense not to post it on the website. But here's what I recall: it was an actual reporter package, with a soundbite from someone from BMW who looked like a deer in headlights, probably startled to have TV coverage of such absolute non-news. It was as gushy as if someone from UNC Wilmington had won the freaking Nobel Prize - ONLY the top 10% of dealers each year attain this pinnacle of customer satisfaction blah blah .....

OK, so there are about 350 BMW dealers in North America, which means that 35 of them won this award this year. In fact, a quick google finds that at least one other dealership in North Carolina won it this year - and they earned it in February, which I suspect would also be true of the local award. This award isn't for having the most kidney donors on staff. BMW says: "The Center of Excellence award is reserved for those dealers who excel in brand values and customer satisfaction while achieving key business objectives related to vehicle and parts sales. "

I wouldn't consider it worth a reporter package on the 6:00 news if they were named the very best BMW dealership in the country, but this is absolutely ridiculous. An internal company award is simply not real news, EVER and one announced four months ago isn't even slightly like news. If they want to buy commercial time and brag about it, that's fine, but it just doesn't get news coverage.

This was so transparently either a direct tie-in to an ad sale already made, or a big pitch to make one, that I almost lost my lunch. I suppose it's conceivable that an amateur news director might think it acceptable to call this news, but I simply can't believe the wall between ads and news has so completely crumbled.

'We Googled You'

RE: 'We Googled You,' Harvard Business Review Case and response from Danah Boyd

This is a very interesting case, because it bears out what I have been telling people much younger than I am for the past several years: the same wildly interconnected world of information that is making the second half of my own life so much more rewarding is making it no longer possible for those in succeeding generations to live down their youthful mistakes.

When I was 18, the drinking age, for beer at least, was 18. Of course, when I was 16 and 17, I drank beer along with my friends, who were also consuming other illicit substances. We didn't even have fake IDs, because we didn't have to worry much about getting carded - we'd either sneak in or go somewhere else.

In the next few years, I drove home many a night I shouldn't have, spent many a night where I shouldn't have, and generally had a real big time. I didn't get married until I was almost 30, didn't settle into my eventual career for a few more years, and never had children, so my misspent youth was a long one.

I won't say I never got caught doing anything bad, but at the time I got caught, the penalties were current, with only a couple of years of higher insurance premiums and the immediate embarrassment the worst of it. One friend, who had a major marijuana-dealing arrest that resulted in a short jail term and fairly long probation, went on to make lots of money in the fashion business. Another one nearly died of mortification when he was caught embezzling from his fraternal organization, lost his career and spent several months in jail, and today works just a few miles away in a very different field, and no one but his family knows about the crime.

Today, I am a staid, sedate, nigh-on-to prim, middle-aged, middle-class, middleweight lady with a nice professional job, who would be the perfect recruit for Al Qaeda: I am virtually invisible to everyone, and unless the authorities are patting down every single corpus that passes a particular point, I am virtually guaranteed to get by untouched if not entirely unnoticed.

A few old friends and I laugh uproariously when we get to recollecting our wild youths. But for those who have children themselves, the laughter often fades into nervous giggles, when we continue the conversation into the current impossibility of blotting out mistakes.

With the advent of both the internet - mainly the Googlable internet - and digital public records as well as news media, every little mistake has the potential to do what we used to joke about, go on your "permanent record," really. Every kid who gets into trouble for doing something stupid, whether it's buying beer with a fake ID or shoplifting, may pay for it for the rest of their lives. Today, not every little thing like that is recorded and searchable. But 10 years ago, who would have thought you could go to a website that would show you in seconds everything you wanted to know about every registered sex offender in the United States. In fact, some of the worst permanent-record smears young people are getting right now are on those rolls: in many places, a 16-year-old who has sex with someone a few months younger can end up there. I'm thinking that might be a real career-limiting move, before they even know what career they had in mind. Just ask Genarlow Wilson.

I don't know if it's a good thing to live down your past. Maybe if it's harder, people will learn when they're younger not to be so wild, but I'm not sure. I am sure that some people who are in their teens and early twenties right now will become the poster children for the new edition of the permanent record. You can see the draft version on their own places in cyberspace, where they brag about doing the things I mentioned above, with the difference being that the occasional nostalgic weekends my friends and I spend dredging the past out of our ever-dimming memories will be replaced by ever-bright and more or less incontrovertible digital proof, saved somewhere, by someone, maybe to appear when it's least helpful to the cause. I've been trying to warn the young people in my life, but they laugh. And their mothers giggle nervously while we're remembering our wild days.

Getting back to the Harvard Business Review case: I don't care whether Hathaway Jones hires Mimi Brewster or not. I don't much care about any of the people in that world, and my main question about the case as presented is this: Why doesn't anyone think it's wrong that Fred Westen is recruiting his prep-school buddy's daughter? If he would broaden his universe of candidate-seeking, maybe she wouldn't be the only one to choose from. But what do I know? I'm just a middle-aged, middle-class middleweight lady who'd be called matronly if you didn't know I don't have children .... and there's a good reason you don't know my real name!

Tougher penalties for killing police animals approved

Sometimes legislative remedies are overreactions, but sometimes they're not. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this one, but I think my desire to protect the dogs outweighs any thought that this might be overkill. Anyone who intentionally kills a police dog, first of all, is probably a pretty bad character to begin with and second, is just about as likely to kill a police officer as well.

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. - Someone who willfully kills a K-9, seeing-eye dog or other law enforcement or assistance animal would be guilty of a felony and could serve prison time under a bill given final legislative approval Monday night. .... The bill was filed by Sen. A.B. Swindell, D-Nash, after last year's death of Danny, a K-9 police dog in Rocky Mount. The dog was shot and killed while chasing a suspect wanted on gun and cocaine possession charges.

This story certainly tips me in the direction of book-throwing - for a K9 officer to kill his own dog because he didn't perform up to par in a competition is on the same level as killing a child.

Miami-Dade police sergeant charged in death of K-9

11-year-old hunter bags 'monster pig' in Alabama / 'Monster Pig' was really farm-raised 'Fred'

I'm not sure what I can add to these two news stories. With the parts I have boldfaced as commentary, they are pretty self-explanatory.

Although I would like to add the dictionary definition of "feral," from Merriam-Webster Online:

a not domesticated or cultivated : WILD
b:having escaped from domestication and become wild

Poor Fred definitely doesn't meet either of those definitions, and for the wildlife officials to say otherwise is just wrong.

And to expand on the commentary indicated by the boldface, how can anyone call shooting any animal with a handgun hunting, especially the part about finishing it off point-blank? It would seem to me that if you can get close enough to shoot a pig with a handgun, he's clearly not wild. But it seems that there is a new sport of handgun hunting I haven't heard about. If you scroll to the end of this item, you will see that it's even more fun than that, another preteen boy killed one with a knife .... I'm sorry, but this is the end of civilization as I knew it.

While some may debate the morality of meat-eating, as long as we're doing it, there's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned hog-killing on a farm to understand where meat really comes from. But to make a sport of it out in the swamps and glorify the manliness and excitement of stabbing an animal to death just disgusts me.

UPDATE: I feel even less sorry for the "hunter" and his family - apparently in an effort to profit from their unsportsmanlike slaughter of handfed Fred, they faked the photos on the website they quickly put up - the photos which then were used by the media across the country.

From the Wilmington Star News:

Montgomery, Ala. | An 11-year-old Alabama boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail.
.....
Regardless of the comparison, Jamison is reveling in the attention over his pig, which has a Web site put up by his father - www.monsterpig.com - that is generating Internet buzz.
"It feels really good," Jamison, of Pickensville, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."
.....
He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot. Through it all there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation of doing.

"I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited," said Jamison, who just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school.

This story really grossed me out to begin with, but it got worse in the next news cycle.

From ESPN:
'Monster Pig' was really farm-raised 'Fred'
Not-so-wild pig sold to Lost Creek Plantation four days before it was hunted down
FRUITHURST, Ala. — The huge hog that became known as "Monster Pig'' after being hunted and killed by an 11-year-old boy had another name: Fred.

The not-so-wild pig had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a 150-acre fenced area, the animal's former owner said.

Phil Blissitt told The Anniston Star in a story Friday that he bought the 6-week-old pig in December 2004 as a Christmas gift for his wife, Rhonda, and that they sold it after deciding to get rid of all the pigs at their farm.

"I just wanted the truth to be told. That wasn't a wild pig,'' Rhonda Blissitt said.

Mike Stone said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday that he had been under the impression that the hog was wild, not farm-raised.

Stone said state wildlife officials told him that it is not unusual for hunting preserves to buy farm-raised hogs and that the hogs are considered feral once they are released.

Stone said he and his son met Blissitt on Friday morning to get more details about the hog. Blissitt said that he had about 15 hogs and decided to sell them for slaughter, but that no one would buy that particular animal because it was too big for slaughter or breeding, Stone said.

Blissitt said that the pig had become a nuisance and that visitors were often frightened by it, Stone said. "He was nice enough to tell my son that the pig was too big and needed killing,'' Stone said. "He shook Jamison's hand and said he did not kill the family pet.'' The Blissitts said they didn't know the hog that was hunted was Fred until they were contacted by a game warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. The agency determined that no laws were violated in the hunt.

A Reprieve for the Paddlewheel in Wilmington

Star News Forums

RE: A reprieve for the paddlewheel - editorial

See my post on the related news article here.

I'm disappointed that this editorial merely adds to the hot air about this issue. The museum "may want to use the paddlewheel in a fundraising campaign" is the best you can come up with?

Why don't you suggest that Mr. Merritt pull out his checkbook and keep the promise he made to throw in a big chunk of money to keep the boat here? You seem to be congratulating him for pulling personal political strings in pursuit of something personally important to him - isn't that the same as earmarks and pork and all the other political sins so often decried in these pages? Now that he got his way, there is no suggestion that he indeed bears responsibility for the expense.

To suggest as you do that the museum rethink all of its financial priorities and base a facility expansion on this boat is a real slap in the face to the people who run it. Are you laboring under the assumption that they have no strategic plans, that they have never considered what among their missions is important, and how much they could afford to achieve which of them?

I have no affiliation with the museum, in fact have barely set foot in it, but I've never heard anything to indicate that they are either clueless or profligate - rather that they do the best they can with very limited funding.

Americans often misuse the word "romantic" when what is being discussed is actually maudlin sentimentality. You have done precisely that here - if the romance with this boat were genuine, you and Mr. Merritt would have more to offer in terms of actual, financial support instead of this phony gushy love, like a baby-daddy who thinks he's doing his job when he brings a rose on Mother's Day but never sent a single support check.

Historic boat's future uncertain

Star News Forums

This May 8 article said:

The decision comes just hours before officials were to begin dismantling the engine and just days after downtown developer Gene Merritt has said he'd be willing to move and store the steam-powered paddle wheel at his own expense to keep it from leaving the Port City.

But today Mr. Merritt says:

"It's not leaving town, and as far as I'm concerned my mission is accomplished on that level," he said.

Now that the museum has pointed out that it would take a huge fundraising effort to get the boat restored and on display, Mr. Merritt is finished. It seems to me that if he were truly sincere, he would put a dollar figure on the table that he's willing to pay - based on the earlier grandstanding - so the fundraising can get started in a big way, right away. Otherwise, it appears to me to be a lot of self-serving hot air.

This PR guy shares the blame

Public relations spokespeople who work for taxpayer-supported institutions have a sometimes difficult task - they obviously have individuals they are responsible to, but both their and their superiors' true responsibility is to the public who pays the bills for all of them. When the choice is between the truth and saving somebody's butt in the agency, the truth should win, no matter how temporarily - or even permanently, in the form of losing the job - painful it may be.

The Health Services department spokesman in this story from today's Los Angeles Times fails miserably in his duty to the public, and to the truth. He attempted to scapegoat a dead woman and her surviving boyfriend in order to save the skin of the people in the hospital who killed her. He should be fired along with the other heads that will roll in this horrifying story.

Even if this kind of whitewash and demonization of the victim succeeds - which it often does in the short term - in the long term, it comes back to haunt. Either the true horror is exposed, and those responsible, including the PR guy, pay a harsher penalty than if it had been handled right at first, or the anxiety of wondering if and when it will be found out takes its own toll. I'd way rather lose my job now for refusing to help with a coverup than be part of this kind of stink.

Tale of last 90 minutes of woman's life

Hours after her death, county Department of Health Services spokesman Michael Wilson sent a note informing county supervisors' offices about the incident but saying that that police had been called because Rodriguez's boyfriend became disruptive.

Health services Director Dr. Bruce Chernof said Friday that subsequent information showed Prado was not, in fact, disruptive. Chernof otherwise refused to comment, citing the open investigation, patient privacy and "other issues."

Amazon review policy allows unethical practice

I stumbled across a book review on Amazon.com which had been posted by the author's mother-in-law, using very amateurish half-anonymization. To begin with, she didn't identify their relationship in her review, which would have made it basically acceptable. I happened to have just seen the wedding announcement online, and recognized her town. Upon looking at the announcement again, I saw that the Amazon user name was a contraction of the mother-in-law's first and last names. The review, posted more than a year ago, is the only one she has ever posted there, so it was clearly an intentional effort to boost her relative's sales.

So I dropped a quick email to Amazon, thinking how happy they would be to remove such craven pap from their pages. Well boy, was I wrong. Following is some of the correspondence.
Sun May 13 21:56:24 UTC 2007

I just happened to run across this review after seeing the author's wedding announcement in the NY Times online and realized the reviewer is her mother-in-law. Not only that, she is a retired librarian and certainly knows it is unethical to write such a droolingly positive review of a relative's work. You should delete it immediately.

From: "Amazon.com Customer Service"
2007/05/14 Mon PM 03:05:03 EDT

We're sorry for any inconvenience you've experienced. I hope the following information is helpful:
We would be happy to look into this matter further. To help us find the comments in our archives, we will require more information. Please use the link below to send us the ASIN, subject line and date of the review as it appears on our web site. This will allow us to locate the review and take the appropriate action.

Tue May 15 11:47:56 UTC 2007

I provided everything you could possibly need to know to find the review - a link as generated by your system. I certainly can't help it if the URL is four lines long and certainly don't see why you can't copy and paste each of those four lines.

I was not inconvenienced by this, I was outraged that your site allows such egregious self-promotion.

From: "Amazon.com Customer Service"
2007/05/16 Wed PM 01:31:20 EDT

We understand your concern, but the review doesn't fall outside of our guidelines. In order to help customers make informed buying decisions, we are interested in cultivating a diversity of opinion in our reviews. Part and parcel of that is allowing our customers to air their honest thoughts about items.

You can read our review guidelines online at:
http://www.amazon.com/o/tg/browse/-/14279631/#reviewguidelines

I am sorry to hear that you consider one of these reviews to be harmful to the sales of this title. We do, by all means, encourage you to submit your own review for this title. You can do this on the detail page by clicking on the link to "Write an online review."

May 17 12:01:24 UTC 2007

I was reporting a review that needs to be removed because it was written by a family member of the author. The cut-and-paste reply I received had nothing to do with my message at all. (I certainly don't "consider one of these reviews to be harmful to the sales of this title.")

From: "Amazon.com Customer Service"
Date: 2007/05/17 Thu PM 01:40:34 EDT

Thank you for writing back to us at Amazon.com. I've reviewed our previous correspondence and your account. I sympathize with your frustration. However, please understand that the information provided in our last message correctly represents our policy at this time. As my colleague previously mentioned, the review doesn't fall outside of our guidelines and so we cannot remove it.

I'm sure many authors, and others who create work for sale to the public, will be relieved to learn that they no longer need to buy the false moustaches before shouting praise of their own work from the rooftops. You can just go right ahead and have all your friends and relatives put gloppy raves into all the online sites, and thus make them useless to those who might seek an honest assessment of the work.

Wolfowitz's Story Disputed By Ex-Official

Washington Post
I've been waiting for someone to point out that neither Wolfowitz's job nor Riza's is or was an immutable right.

How many thousands of couples have had to face that dilemma: a ban on fraternization or nepotism within the workplace where they met, much less one as in this case, where one works there and the other gets an offer? What is so special about these two that makes it their prerogative to both work there?

In my life, everyone I know who faced that situation actually made a choice that was within their own power. Either one of them quit or, if career was their main priority, they ended the relationship. Since when did the level of public-sector service either of these two have performed deserve a publicly funded guaranteed job, or a golden parachute?

As a non-Beltway type, I also find it absolutely astounding that someone on the World Bank payroll would be working inside the US State Department for an indefinite period, and now running a supposed non-governmental organization. Last I heard, these three institutions were in entirely different silos, so to speak. How can someone work at all three without actually changing jobs?

These are questions I would like to see answered in addition to seeing Mr. Wolfowitz and Ms. Riza both removed from what they appear to consider their high entitlements.

On Apex animal control and the house full of sheep

Independent Weekly
I completely share the "zero" assessment of Apex and Wake County zoning and law enforcement officials and animal control officers, who felt there was nothing they could do even as this situation spiraled out of control over months and years.

But I add to that assessment a new and future zero for the Apex council, for their knee-jerk reaction in banning all livestock in Apex. You're right - some people kill other people driving tractors down country roads. Let's ban all tractors!!!

Apex is not Cary, at least not yet, and I think it's really too bad that they would now prohibit someone with a big, fairly natural lot from having a couple of goats to tend it, or prohibit a backyard duck or two.

The problem wasn't with the livestock or even the lack of a livestock-regulating ordinance, it was a complete lack of common sense and/or observation skills on the part of those enforcers. The stench described has probably been a public nuisance, regardless of source, for years, and the description of the animals' condition leads me to believe the situation evolved into animal cruelty at least several months ago. If they didn't see or address these obvious violations, why pass more ordinances they can fail to enforce?