So the other day, I posted about the allegations that David Howard over at Action Alameda was making against the City of Alameda and the Alameda Police Department. Based on “anonymous sources” David Howard decided to claim that there was a “cover-up” because he couldn’t get the 911 tapes he wanted. Of course without verifying if the anonymous source’s information was correct he decided to run with the cover-up claims and the claims that the robbery attempt was an “inside job.”
See what happens when you keep posting story after story about the same 911 tapes and the supposed cover-up because you aren’t getting your tapes instead of taking up the Police Chief on his offer to meet with you means you end up looking sort of silly when you have to write about what actually happened, because it’s so less nefarious than you initially made it out to sound.
I will admit though, David Howard did a fair job of retelling the information that he received from the Police Chief even though in the end it made his anonymous source (or “sources”) look like a complete nutjob (or nutjobs).
So what did we learn from this? That’s right: take the Police Chief up on his offer to go over the facts of the investigation before writing endlessly about cover-ups. Particularly if the incident was duly noted in local police blotters as well.
Also, speaks very highly about the Police response time in Alameda. 40 second response time? Not bad at all.
“So what did we learn from this?”
That Chief Noonan is a ‘stand up’ guy who takes genuine pride in our police department and this city. Even though this little incident reinforced what we already knew it was well worth delving into.
Comment by Jack Richard — January 27, 2012 @ 8:19 am
If Howard were in Canada…
“It is not clear exactly what he said, or why it was fundamentally different from all the invective LeBlanc has hurled at local cops and politicians over the years. But he says it prompted an eight-man raid of his apartment last Thursday, during which the Fredericton Police Force, the same agency he has repeatedly and vociferously criticized, seized his computer as evidence of “defamatory libel.”
http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/26/police-charge-canadian-blogger-with-crim
Comment by Jack Richard — January 27, 2012 @ 8:40 am
The responsible journalistic response to someone reporting a “coverup” is to verify or reinforce the initial source’s accuracy first. One way to do this would be to call or send an email to APD. (By the time I finished grade school I had learned to “never a-s-s-u-m-e” and to always verify your facts story from two trustworthy, accurate, and independent sources.)
I still do not understand why Action Alameda “reports” non-news the way it does. Reporting innuendo or unverified gossip as “news” without first checking the facts by thoroughly investigating them is not journalism. Spreading rumors or innuendo is irresponsible–and completely avoidable if you do your homework first.
Comment by Jon Spangler — January 27, 2012 @ 8:51 am
Speaking of looking like a complete “nutjob” ……Here’s Jon straight off the Firemans pole and jumping on his Bike.
Comment by John — January 27, 2012 @ 9:19 am
Jon, aren’t you assuming your two trustworthy, accurate, and independent sources are trustworthy, accurate, and independent?
Comment by Jack Richard — January 27, 2012 @ 11:59 am
Oh, come on, Lauren–nothing to write about so you pick on Action Alameda again? When have any of you cleared up a wrong done to you by sitting down with Chief Noonan & discussing it? It did not work for me. I’m still waiting for him to get back to me about the law that he said trumps the one his officers so obviously broke. Alameda Police should not be defended for stealing my classic truck out of my driveway because they did not like the look of my yard. Memo to Noonan: APD personnel did not fill in the odometer readings or leave them blank. “Unk” was written in the odometer space, which means they neither forgot nor made an error. They deliberately did not perform due diligence & it shouldn’t be up to me to sue APD in order for you to admit APD screwed up. The Constitution guarantees the right to private property, even in Alameda. If you see something you want, you should not be allowed to declare it “blight” & just take it, as this city has been doing for years!
Since there was no particular reason to single me out, I wonder who else this may have happened to in Alameda–altho I expect they’ve moved away by now.
But if you’re out there, send the details to Action Alameda News! Howard cares about exposing government failures, unlike this site, which whitewashes them.
PS: I am still receiving delinquent registration notices on both vehicles from the state, meaning they were probably illegally diverted once in APD custody. Certainly not all APD are to blame-they’ve been rather helpful to me lately, but there never has been, and there should be, an investigation to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Comment by vigi — January 27, 2012 @ 12:33 pm
Jack R.: A general rule of thumb is if you have an anonymous source, and if you can get two other sources to independently verify the information from your source who would probably not want to be quoted — or you can get some sort of hard documentation — then it’s generally acceptable to write about the information gleaned from your anonymous source.
Otherwise it’s just gossip, which is fine, but you can’t really hold it out as fact based or “news.”
Comment by Lauren Do — January 27, 2012 @ 12:47 pm
Hey how come Action Alameda hasn’t started an investigation into vigi’s problems with the Alameda police dept. If anyone can solve your problem vigi it would be David Howard.
Comment by John P. — January 27, 2012 @ 1:59 pm