Please Help Us Keep You Informed

A letter from Kathleen Sloan:

I often think of a quote by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan when listening to elected officials –”You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” 

I have reported in a Democratic stronghold in Virginia, Republican strongholds in Iowa and Florida and in this Republican stronghold, Sierra County. In my 25 years of experience reporting in these four states and locales, nothing touches this area for difficulty in getting elected officials and government officials to respond to questions that mostly probe their evidence and fact-finding process—trying to hold them to account for their decisions and votes that affect our lives. 

Silence is the prevalent response. It’s as if the patron-peon culture still exists here, the elected officials representing ranchers and business interests, and like patrons, their decisions are by fiat and not to be questioned by the peon people and certainly not by reporters. Reporters are to take dictation and to provide PR for them and to tout the area as a great place to live and to visit. 

Most decisions and governance in Sierra County happens behind closed doors, most elected officials speaking in private to each other and their favored constituents. This good ol’ boy system is entrenched here, favored business people and ranchers and Hot Springs High School alumni also favoring private lobbying sessions with the people they keep voting into office versus going to the mic in public meetings. They too want feel-good “news” articles, nothing about government accountability that would hurt trade or tourism. 

This makes reporting here more difficult than anywhere else I’ve worked, since I sure as hell am not a good ol’ girl favored with insider information. First I have to figure out what is going on. 

I pour over legal ads in the Sentinel, since much government action requires such ads. 

I study public documents on local government, state- and federal-agency websites. 

I study local-government meeting packets, some 600 pages long, often having to research what those documents mean. 

I spend a lot of time looking up state laws and local codes, since we are supposed to be governed by the rule of law, not by patrons or kings. 

I study legal briefs involving local governments. Such cases are where truth, fact and evidence often, but not always, hold sway over patron power and hold governments accountable. 

This takes time and some money. I need very little to keep doing this, but I do need it. 

You, dear reader, are not the norm. You read and think. You understand what it means for a newspaper to be totally unbeholden to businesses and governments because it doesn’t sell ads or propaganda pieces or infomercials disguised as “news.” 

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