Mr. Montgomery notes that NPR's ombudsman has blasted Laura Sullivan's controversial October 2011 investigation of South Dakota's treatment of Native American foster children. In a lengthy indictment, Edward Schumacher-Matos identifies five major violations of NPR's code of journalistic ethics:
1. No proof for its main allegations of wrongdoing;
2. Unfair tone in communicating these unproven allegations;
3. Factual errors, shaky anecdotes and misleading use of data by quietly switching what was being measured;
4. Incomplete reporting and lack of critical context;
5. No response from the state on many key points [Edward Schumacher-Matos, "South Dakota Indian Foster Care 1: Investigative Storytelling Gone Awry," NPR: Ombudsman, 2013.08.09].
NPR acknowledges some inadequate sourcing and over-generalization. But NPR notes that Schumacher-Matos's cirtique revolves largely around the fact that the South Dakota officials took an adversarial position with their reporters, then made nice with the ombudsman to tell their version of the story:
In this instance, however, we find his unprecedented effort to "re-report" parts of the story to be deeply flawed. Despite the report's sweeping claims, the only source that figures in any significant way in the ombudsman's account is a state official whose department activities were the subject of the series. Additionally, the ombudsman's interaction with state officials over the past 22 months has impeded NPR's ability to engage those officials in follow-up reporting. Overall, the process surrounding the ombudsman's inquiry was unorthodox, the sourcing selective, the fact-gathering uneven, and many of the conclusions, in our judgment, subjective or without foundation [Kinsey Wilson and Margaret Low Smith, "Editors' Note," NPR: Ombudsman, 2013.08.09].
The competing journalistic claims here provide a Rorschach test for all bloggers, readers, and citizens concerned about whether South Dakota's foster care system is treating all children and families with justice. The ombudsman affirms the conservative South Dakota bunker mentality that sees out-state liberals waging slander and witch hunts against us. It will also give comfort to the majority population that prefers to take no responsibility and blame Indians for all the problems on the reservations. NPR affirms the liberal concern that our state government circles its wagons and protects its interests with selective propaganda. The ombudsman's report confirms that state officials are more willing to engage a journalist who can help them undercut a politically damaging news report than face their own Indian constituents to discuss the actual problems discussed in that report.
Schumacher-Matos's report is lengthy. I haven't read the entire report. Neither has anyone else in the blogosphere. Read it, then say what you think.
Well, regardless of what the omsbudsman report says, FACTS that cannot be denied is the Brandon Taliaferro case in Aberdeen where when the prosecutor saw misconduct on the part of the state, they went after him with a veangance. Even to the point that they saw to it that the child abuser was given a lawyer who is also the Federal Magistrate Judge who was kept on the case at state expense even after the Defendant was able to hire his own lawyer. Talk about circling the wagons!
After all this time I thought you knew how to spell my name, Cory.
For twitter users, go read the comments of Wab Kinew
@WabKinew
Dang it! I thought that first H looked superfluous. Edit coming up!
I think this ombudsman report is old news. It has been conveniently ignored in South Dakota....and at least partially by SDPB radio, but then again maybe I heard it there first.
Cory points out a strategy that is being adopted by government administrations, both Republican and Democratic, who are called out on various scandals or malfeasance. It must be something that's being taught in communications departments. Is it?
It used to be that officials who believed a story was wrong or skewed would call you up and ream you out. They would give you facts, invite you in to look at records, etc. In fact they often did that before you ran with a story. You felt, perhaps, a little brow beaten, but at least you got an honest attempt to address the issue.
Now Governors or others in management positions shut up, refuse to talk in anything but blunt denials and platitudes not back up with facts until after you write the story, then dump on the reporter or media outlet because they didn't get your side of the story.
Sorry, guys, you get one opportunity to get your story out, and if you play the bunker strategy that's your problem. The problem with NPR's ombudsman is that it provides an incentive for people in positions of power to obfuscate. Anything that comes out from an ombudsman is after-the-fact bullshit.
this ain't over.
And I probably won't read the entire report. I do not have the mental constitution to watch a person so furiously giving frictive pleasure to his own ego. That is something that should be done, if it must be done, in the privacy of one's own room.
The ombudsman states his thesis point in this graph:
"As I delved into the defense of the series by the reporters and editors, I had a gnawing sense that the real issue was deeper than the story. The challenges that I was having in deciphering the tone and images of this story reflected what seemed to me to be a misuse of the techniques of storytelling in other complicated investigations, too."
The task of an ombudsman is not to give a narrative of his "gnawing sense" but to make a review of the established and documented facts on which the story is based. This ombudsman makes clear from the outset that he is not going to analyze the dispute but demonstrate that he is taking the position that he is a superior journalist and his way of doing things is the superior way to do things. He criticizes the tone and images of the story as if he is talking about a poem, not a piece of expository journalism. But he does not get specific about what images and expressions of tone he is referring to.
The ombudsman appears to be so ego-bound that he cannot abide a journalistic piece that does not conform to his preferences for style and diction. Criticism based on preferences and prejudices is not valid criticism. He says, “Poor writing and editing appear to me to be to blame for making the switches [ of factual references] without ever saying so.”
However, in one passage, he does point clearly to problems encountered in assembling the report:
“Some of the factual errors and incomplete reporting clearly trace back to a hostile relationship between the journalists and state officials. DSS officials, after initial openness, restricted access to the reporters. Malsam-Rysdon and Wieseler met with the reporters only once, together, and for less than an hour. Malsam-Rysdon told me she felt that Sullivan and Walters had made up their minds, and so she didn't want to meet more with them. Before the series aired, the governor's office released an unusual "prebuttal" saying that that the NPR reporters had "an obvious desire to create a story rather than report the facts of the matter." The statement had a menacing personal tone that said, improperly, that Sullivan was from San Francisco, demonizing her as an outsider. Letters from senior editors to the governor did not calm the waters.”
Clearly, state officials decided to withhold information, and took on the aspect of hostile and uncooperative witnesses. But the ombudsman states, “Still, it is incumbent upon reporters to establish empathy to get subjects to talk.” Empathy? Sympathetic understanding? In regard to whom or what? Rather, he takes it upon himself to re-report the facts according to his personal preference.
One section of the ombudsman’s report deals with discrepancies in numbers. In particular, he takes issue with the report’s statement that $100 million of federal money was funneled into South Dakota’s child welfare programs. He finds only $37 million were provided to the Indian portion of that program. He provides charts comparing the report figures with numbers provided him by the state. He leaves those figures to imply that the reporters got them wrong. He never tries to get at the reasons of the discrepancies. If the reporters were inflating the numbers, he shows no evidence. An ombudsman’s role is to determine just how such discrepancies can be made, not to make assumptions about the honesty and competence of those who present one set of figures.
But his graph about the belligerence of state officials sets the context for one of the facts that distinguishes South Dakota from other states in the union. Despite some feeble attempts to alter the open records laws in South Dakota, state officials and bureaucrats provide whatever they damn please in giving the public information, and the public is not allowed to examine the actual records. Recall, that when Bill Janklow had funds accruing to the state from his administration’s dealings with credit card companies, he refused to tell the state treasurer how much and where it was banked. Furthermore, he had his henchman in the state legislature make it a criminal offense to public reveal whether any official investigations were being made into state affairs or reveal any substantive information about such investigations.
The simple fact is that government in a one-party state is dictatorial and totalitarian, and NPR threatened to breach the wall of secrecy behind which that government operates.
The ombudsman made no clarifications or amplifications of the NPR story. Rather, he contributed to the stifling political contention that is state government in South Dakota.
Of course, his report set the conservative bloggers at the Wart Collage and South Dakota GOP Politics off in orgasmic glee. This is ironic when Wart Collage chortles over the ombudsman’s castigation of NPR, because it seems as if its author has never written a post that plays honest with facts or does not libel someone.
But sid in his comment above makes reference to an incident in Brown County that gives the NPR story a great deal of credence. State’s attorneys in Brown County have nominally run on the Democratic ticket for years, although they have contributed nothing to the party or even been on communicative terms with party officials or other Democratic candidates. The Brandon Taliaferro case in Aberdeen was a major factor in the election of a Republican State’s Attorney. It was also a major factor in why a number of very active Democrats have pulled back from active participation in the party.
This controversy is not about whether one of the most professional news organizations in the country made some mistakes. It is about the state of government in South Dakota. And as long as government continues with its business as usual and anombudsman serve as its spokesperson, we will never know the real facts.
frictive?! David, I love it when you talk dirty.
Imagine Kevin Schieffer sending an email to Mr. Schumacher-Matos.
The Taliaferro/Schwab acquittal (the state's case was so weak, the judge dismissed the case without hearing the defendants' arguments) mentioned by Sid is relevant. It shows what happens when someone inside the state tries to challenge their system. Challenged by an out-state journalist, the state thought it could just stonewall. Burned by the coverage, the state then seeks out the ombudsman to sell its case and challenge the journalists' ethics. As Donald says, why not just lay out the facts to the first journalist?
Ironic: Republicans are telling us not to trust government, not journalistic watchdogs.
David, it's not just your vocabulary that rocks. I deeply appreciate your analysis of the ombudsman's report.
Here are two questions: what is Sullivan's motivation to come all the way to South Dakota just to get a "story"? Aren't there more fun and rewarding places to go for such purposes? Suppose Sullivan is the worst we can imagine: what does she gain by pinging a state whose elected officials are not on anyone's radar nationwide?
The other question: by similar logic, does the NPR ombudsman have any motivation to spin the story in favor of South Dakota officials?
Among Republican legislator Ted Klaudt's victims were his two foster daughters. Knowing Ted's size and girth first hand, I can't imagine the guy had the capacity to make a living in rural South Dakota. Were these two young women Native Americans? Certainly, what Klaudt was doing was exploiting them in every way possible -- in plain sight. Didn't he have them in Pierre as Republican Caucus pages serving the needs of his pals in the GOP caucus?
Back when this happened, I had wondered how somebody as obviously inept as Klaudt would be eligible to keep foster daughters. Did he pull strings with his pals in Pierre?
His monstrous use of them made me wonder if there is a common viewpoint that foster children are a commodity to be exploited as any owner wants. Obviously there is a culture in our state that sees foster children as a commodity that can produce income. And whatever else the hell people think they want.
It is not, I think, "bunker mentality" to object to a piece of yellow journalism. I would be very surprised to learn that South Dakota's government was not guilty of abuses. That would be a first in the history of governments. Precisely for that reason, it is incumbent upon the press to get it right. When they make a mess of it, making unsubstantiated allegations buttressed by invented and distorted statistics, concealing obvious facts that tell against their story, substituting a mountain of innuendo for established conclusions, they do an enormous favor to anyone responsible for actual abuses. If this episode has enabled any abusers, the fault lies with the NPR reporters and producers and not with NPR's ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos. Schumacher-Matos utterly demolishes the NPR story. That is what an ombudsman is supposed to do when confronted by a shoddy and dishonest hit piece.
NPR is standing by its story while Mr. Schumacher-Matos is likely headed the way of Juan Williams.
Plenty of Native American leaders/activists supported the views of the original article. It picked up pretty wide circulation nationwide, at least based on social media. Most of the people picking up on the story are far more likely to trust the views of the marginalized group than that of the supposed oppressors.
I understand that this was submitted to clear up NPR's journalistic ethics concerns. But if the fact that they did registers with anyone nationally, I don't think it'll be more than a flash in the pan. The original already started a whole world of discussion and concern, it's too late for the South Dakota government to protest.
That said, if there's institutional racism in this system, how's the (white) public supposed to believe it and realize it if the journalists reporting on it are misconstruing facts and not seen as trustworthy? Doesn't seem to be helpful for the cause of the ones harmed by this whole foster care system.