Editor, Commonwealth:
For a guy who despises politics and being in the public eye, I have found myself in that position repeatedly for the last couple of weeks. Let me be clear early in this letter. I am speaking as a citizen of the community for which your paper serves. I am not speaking as a commissioner of the Big Sand Drainage District. I am a commissioner of that district, but my words are meant to address a pattern of a lack of fact-checking by your newspaper. These words are my personal opinions. A response from the Big Sand Drainage Commission will be coming in the future.
As I stated last week in a letter to your paper (“Boycott call targets innocent business,” Oct. 1), I am the owner of property in Greenwood. The Landing convenience store is located on my property. That’s the store that had a call for a boycott against it because of a billboard to which the store has no connection.
In my letter, I explained the facts. On the same day there was a news article published that was written by you, Tim Kalich, editor. It was a front- page article. It stated SOME of the facts surrounding the story. In that article, the only person who had any emotion attributed to them was me. The article read, “… the boycott call, which had angered businessman Charlie Montgomery Jr., … .” That’s factual. I was angry! In your article, you quoted only one comment out of more than 100. You failed to reference the vulgarity and pure hatred in the comments.
I was out of town working, so someone read the article to me over the phone as I drove down the highway. I was angered again, Mr. Kalich. As I drove along, I thought about writing a second letter, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
I called you and asked if you planned a follow-up article or editorial. You told me that you were considering an editorial that would address free speech. I asked you if you planned to address the tone or the actual comments that were posted on Facebook. I asked you if you planned to address the fact that the leader of this call was a teacher in the local public school district and the fact that he specifically called on “the young people” to get involved. I asked if anyone at your paper had investigated if these young people were current students in the school system. I asked you if you thought this was proper behavior for someone in a position of authority if the young people were indeed students. Your response to me was, “I guess I’ve just become jaded to social media.”
Your op-ed column last Sunday (“Stifling pro-flag ads is not the answer”) was closer but still missed the mark in describing the vulgarity, hatred and violence in those comments. But you were right in your original article. I was angry!
But wait, there’s more! Also last Sunday, I received the privilege of your paper’s scrutiny on a different front. It was another front-page article entitled, “Carroll dams causing concern,” by Nick Rogers. This article was NOT factual.
A couple of weeks ago, I agreed, along with the drainage district’s attorney, to give Mr. Rogers an interview. (You can rest assured that will never happen again.) I was clear in the fact that I was speaking to him to help him understand some of the issues that we, as commissioners, face. I was also clear that I would be speaking my thoughts, that the commission did not yet have enough facts to make a statement.
That’s not what your paper reported. One line read, “However, the board denies that dam maintenance falls within its mandate.” The board has made NO comments to your paper whatsoever.
The next line reports 123 dams in Carroll County. You failed to mention at that point that there are at least four drainage districts in the county. Surely you didn’t intend to insinuate that all of those dams were the responsibility of Big Sand Drainage District.
The article continued with statements like “A lot of them are in danger of failing.” Did you know that a governmental agency inspects the dams every year? Did you know that not one of those reports suggests a failure as your quoted “concerned” citizens stated? Another line reported that a citizen “said that the Big Sand Drainage District has not done enough to address the situation.” Did you know that while you were busy printing Wednesday’s paper with your editorial, which I’ll address below, I was in a meeting with three government agencies discussing a course of action for the commission to take? I suppose that I don’t get the same benefit of the doubt that I afforded you.
And now it gets personal. Your editorial on Wednesday (“Get to work on Carroll dams”) was demeaning, insulting and so void of facts that it is ridiculous. Statements like “since it thought its only duty”, “small, sleepy body,” “has lost most of its institutional memory” and “records are reportedly disorganized and incomplete” show your disregard for disseminating facts. (The commission is almost 100 years old with numerous attorneys and commissioners in that time. I guess the records probably are a bit unorganized.)
I asked several questions above. The answer to all of the questions is “no,” because neither you nor your reporter cares enough to actually investigate facts before you publish stories. Just one more phone call before he finished his article would have let your reporter know that we had a meeting scheduled with all of the pertinent governing bodies. Just one more phone call would have let you know the same thing before you published your editorial. It seems to be a pattern with you, Mr. Editor. I can excuse your reporter, who only has a couple of months’ experience on the job. I cannot excuse you, though. You should be setting the example for a desire to publish facts. In my opinion, you have failed miserably at that.
Again, these are my personal words and do not represent any other family member, business or organization with which I am involved.
Charlie Montgomery Jr.
Greenwood
