This is the second part of my Register Watch™ post for the March 28th issue of the Whitewater Register. In this post, I’ll review Register editor Carrie Dampier’s editorial, “In Defense of the Register and free speech.” As you’ll see, I don’t think she successfully defends either.

Before I begin, I’ll note that Dampier responds in part to a letter from Register subscriber Henri Kinson. Readers may freely compare Kinson’s letter and Dampier’s editorial, on points of clarity, style, and reasoning. I am sure that they’ll find that the letter is superior to the editorial. Kinson certainly needs no assistance from me; his argument prevails on its own. (I am sure, too, that Kinson would disagree with some of the positions that I’ve taken in FREE WHITEWATER. Many thanks, surely, for his supportive words.)

I’ll confine my remarks to Dampier’s editorial.

On Public Conduct. Dampier begins with the contention that she need not cover a story that I created on my blog. She may cover what she wants. It’s false, though, to contend that this is a story that I created.

I created nothing. Public officials acted, and sought out a blogger using a pen name, over months, repeatedly referring to people they falsely believed might be writing at this site as suspects, persons of interest, etc. They acted; I learned of it, and published it. The creators of this story have offices at our municipal building.

Their words, their actions, their conduct. I will happily give credit where credit is due.

(For my series, please click this link: Witch-Hunting a Blogger in Whitewater, Wisconsin.)

On Embarrassment. Dampier observes that embarrassment is not “community news.” That depends on the cause of the embarrassment, I suppose. It’s clear, official rationalizations notwithstanding, that public conduct to overcome lawful, anonymous speech is more than the embarrassment of slipping on a banana peel, after all. It involves public conduct, of public officials, in response to constitutionally-protected speech.

On Being a Hack. Dampier contends that my reference to her as a hack is a personal insult. On the contrary, it’s an apt evaluation of her work in her vocation. Consider a critique of a professional football player, for example. Suppose a receiver drops the ball, play after play, week after week. While evaluating the receiver’s conduct, a writer refers to the receiver as ‘butterfingers.’ That’s not a personal attack — it’s an evaluation of the receiver’s limited professional skill and talent.

If one said that the receiver’s wife looked like a barracuda, now that would be a personal attack. I made no comments of this kind about Dampier or any of her acquaintances.

To call the receiver ‘butterfingers,’ is acerbic, surely, but apt and colorful, too. In the same way, the term hack refers traditionally to a writer who writes poorly, and reasons no better. I am of the opinion that the term cries out for use, in this instance. I would feel remiss if I had not used it.

It says all that one need say about Dampier that, as editor of the town’s newspaper, she offers as her defense that she provides nothing that someone watching local television could not provide. There we find a surprising lack of self-awareness. If that’s it, of what value is a role as editor and reporter?

Pen Names and Anonymity. Dampier contends that, since her surname appears on her stories, “when someone wants to tell me why I’m a hack, they know who to come looking for.” When a reporter writes a sentence that awkward, it only confirms my previous assessment.

In any event, I’m really not anonymous — I use a pen name. It’s the same person, with the same pen name, at the same website. The only person of whom I’ve ever heard who doubted that it was the same man, all the time, was our chief of police (who sought several, thought one might be aiding others, and was wrong on all accounts).

All the city knows how to reach me — my email address has been on my site from its first day, in May 2007. The risible theory that the city wanted civil discourse ignores the prominent link on my website entitled, simply enough, “EMAIL.”

Dampier, the Defender of Childhood Esteem. Dampier contends that she has avoided the story — of official conduct, not mine – because it might lessen the chance to cover a story — wait for the sugary line — for the “proud parents of a Whitewater High School athlete.”

If there is anyone in the city who finds this argument convincing, he deserves a free subscription to the Register. No one could seriously contend that a paper does not have room for both stories. A paper that has room for a front page story on spring, entitled, “Hope Springs Eternal, ” has room for anything.

Dampier may choose as she wants, but she cannot credibly contend that a child will be robbed of his justly earned recognition; a paper of this size has room for many stories. (It even has room for an editorial that relies on an ‘I did it for the children‘ justification.)

The District Attorney’s Office. Dampier contends that she’ll cover the story of the matter of official conduct when it goes before the D.A.’s office, and charges are filed.

No one sensible would make this argument.

First, it’s clear that every normal paper runs all sorts of public policy stories that do not involve litigation.

Second, if litigation were the standard, then the Register should be covering in great detail the federal constitutional suit against former Whitewater police investigator Larry Meyer. I’ve not noticed that coverage; no one else has either.

Third, Dampier should know that the conduct implicated in my public records request involves federal, and not purely, state matters.

Consider the implication of Dampier’s argument — officials’ actions aren’t a story for the Register because they’ve not been charged with a crime. A standard that low is laughable, and hardly a ringing endorsement of their leadership, either.

Amount of Time and Use of Time. Dampier observes that she’ll not cover this story, but then proceeds to print the justifications of a public official that sometimes one will have to take time for a personal emergency.

So be it; actions against a lawful website are hardly a family emergency. They are, however, an indication — a strong one, I think — that local officials have lost all perspective.

Local Newspapers. If Dampier believes that following the local herd puts her in better stead than a statewide newspaper, she’s welcome to that belief. I suggest that she email her opinion to journalists across the state; the arrogance of her opinion will serve as a bit of amusement for those who receive it.

Malicious Intent. Dampier makes an empty and false assertion. There’s no malicious intent, just acerbic criticism of a type found in newspapers and magazines across America, and in opinion columns each day. It takes a thin skin to find malice where it does not exist. It takes, also, a great presumption — Dampier is in no position to discern intent; she cannot discern what does not exist.

Robust commentary tales place across America, in far larger places, with far less fuss, than hypersensitive officials here make of it.

Opinion and Fact. Here one finds the oddest part of Dampier’s editorial — her contention that I have sought vindication of assertions of fact.

I need no vindication; I certainly would not have sought it in the actions of public officials against lawful speech.

What is most telling, though, is Dampier’s contention that I have sought vindication of what I write as fact. That’s nonsense — the lawful position of what I write is that it is opinion commentary. She cannot possibly — whatever her limitations — fail to understand that FREE WHITEWATER is a website of commentary. By design most of the posts are opinion pieces, like short editorials. Most blogs are like this, and much of America’s tradition of political commentary is like this, stretching back to our earliest history.

Dampier cannot possibly be confused about this, unless she’s hopeless unaware of our own country’s history of commentary and lawful, protected speech.

“Deranged Thought….Words of Violence”. That Dampier is so overwrought is embarrassing. I cannot say that I would have thought much of her editorial in any event, but her false mention of acts of violence is just ridiculous in its own unique, sad way.

This website is a small blog of independent commentary. It’s polemical, but entirely peaceful commentary. Dampier can no more attribute anything else to me than I can attribute the sound journalism of others to her.

A ordinary, sensible person could live a thousand years and yet never write anything so false and hysterical as she has written. She is, as I have contended before, an editor who needs and editor.

Voltaire. When one first saw the title of Dampier’s editorial, “In Defense of the Register and free speech,” could one not see a quote from Voltaire on the way? I would have put money on it, but the likelihood was so great that I would never have been able to find profitable odds.

Her contention that she stands with Voltaire, though, is unavailing — she spends most of her editorial undermining the right to lawful, constitutionally protected American speech, only to end with a quick, over-used quotation.

Voltaire’s remarks don’t make a weak editorial better; they’re merely a line in the place of an argument.

This is the first part of my weekly Register Watch™ feature for the March 28th issue of Whitewater’s weekly paper. A second, bonus part will appear later.

As you might expect, the Register, now in its 152nd year, highlights campaign coverage of our upcoming April 1st elections. Three election stories dominate the page: a referendum in the Town of Whitewater on whether to permit alcohol sales, the election of a municipal judge for the City of Whitewater, and the race for the Walworth County Board’s District 4.

I am not a resident of the Town of Whitewater, so the issue does not face my community. What’s missing from the story is what you’ll find only if you visit the website of prominent Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes, of 620 AM WTMJ. At Sykes’s blog, you see that a resident of the town sought Federal court intervention to permit him to speak against referendum issue. (See, “A Victory for Free Speech“, Charlie Sykes, March 21, WTMJ AM 620 website.)

You might have also seen these details linked on FREE WHITEWATER, but not the Register.

On the Walworth County Board race between incumbent Jerry Grant and challenger Jim Stewart, one sees that editor Carrie Dampier describes both as public servants. I have no doubt that both candidates love our community; the description, though, is telling. The term public servant reveals a bias toward continued office-holding. One could as easily use the terms politician, long-time politician, or entrenched incumbent. I don’t favor term limits, but a bias toward politicians as public servants, rather office holders or, well, politicians, is evident.

I have not decided on a candidate in this race, but one obvious detail is missing in Dampier’s coverage of the two candidates. One is the publisher of a website that declares it is a “NEWS and SPORTS site.” (In many ways, it offers better coverage than the Register, as I have remarked previously. It’s not, I think, a news site in the conventional sense. FREE WHITEWATER’s not a news site either — it is a website of independent commentary.)

It is surely worth mentioning that one candidate has a daily website selecting stories for publication. Nothing in the story, including the candidate’s biography at the end, notes the fact.

There is no change in the mix of advertisements that appear in the first section of the Whitewater Register: of the nearly four dozen ads in the first section of the paper, only about one quarter are for Whitewater businesses. This local number includes both campaign advertisements for the upcoming election, and advertisements from the Register itself. (The Register is part of the Southern Lakes Newspapers chain, 700 N. Pine Street, Burlington, WI 53105.)