Wednesday, January 30, 2008

OBR News-o-rama

OBR News-o-rama

Slandering Shaker Heights

Posted: 30 Jan 2008 08:12 AM CST

Which of these story leads is most accurate?

A.) "The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed. This is Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland and a town ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States."

B.) "The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed. The fecal stench of fresh dragon droppings permeates the crisp winter air, as does the deathly rot of unicorn carcasses -- their magical horns poached by the few surviving humans, who will use them in self-defense against the roving packs of radioactive werewolves. This is Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland and a town ravaged by mystical monsters that have come to life in the apocalyptic nightmare roiling the United States."

The correct answer, assuming that one's view of reality is suitably disconnected from Magic: The Gathering, is "Neither. They are equally inaccurate."

But "Option A" is the Shaker Heights which exists in the deranged minds of worldwide news bureau Agence France-Presse. The French press agency recently did an article on the "ghost town" outside of Cleveland which had been created thanks to the collapse of sub-prime mortgages.

drudgeThe article was alarming enough to have gotten the attention of Matt Drudge, who cocked his porkpie hat, put down the Twinkie, and slapped a link to the story on his heavily-trafficked DrudgeReport.com web site (see image).

Drudge claims to get over 20 million visits per day to his website, which consists mostly of links to key news items all over the web. The article was displayed on the website for several days. A casual estimate would put the number of page views while the article was displayed at 50 million (give or take a small European nation or two).

How many clicked through to the alarming story about Shaker Heights? It's hard to say. The headline was attention-grabbing enough to divert even our politically somnambulant attention (at least briefly) from the pursuit of Browns news and free beer to ponder what the hell had happened to Shaker Heights.

It was a fascinating tale. A glorious ride of financial folly, where easily obtained sub-prime mortgages had combined with foolishly extravagant consumers to crush a vibrant, well-to-do town into dust, seemingly overnight.

One weird thing, though.

It was completely wrong.

Apparently the French news agency was later made aware of its mistakes: Here is the article as it appeared to people who linked through from the Drudge Report. And here is the same article as it appeared later on Yahoo.

Here are some of the differences between the article which appeared originally, and was linked by Drudge, and the more accurate one which appeared later, as well as some general information regarding the inaccuracies. These were compiled by Sirk as he labored to keep his jaw from dropping:

1. The city in question turns out to be Mount Pleasant (in Cleveland), not Shaker Heights

2. "9422 Chagrin St." becomes "9422 Union Ave."

3. A search of public records reveals that the so-called "Sarah Evans" is likely another woman whose name we won't mention here, who lived the location for 32 years and recently had a foreclosure case withdrawn by order of the court.

4. "Eagle Fresh" does not exist in Shaker. A comment on first article notes that Little Eagle Food Market exists at E. 93rd, near Kinsman. The updated article now lists "Eagle Kinsman Fresh Market". (Close enough, oui?) The actual Little Eagle Food Market is at 3111 E. 93rd, north of Kinsman, and maybe a mile or so north of Union.

5. The real "Chagrin St.", Chagrin Blvd., doesn't even begin until Union and Kinsman merge at E. 140th....a full 46 blocks east of where "Sarah Evans" supposedly lives in "Shaker Heights."

6. In terms of Chagrin Blvd, Shaker Heights begins at the E. 156 block of Chagrin Blvd, a full SIXTY-TWO blocks from where "Sarah Evans" supposedly lives in "Shaker Heights." SIXTY-TWO BLOCKS! 

7. According to the Plain Dealer, Cuyahoga County Treasurer James Rokakis, who was quoted as saying "Shaker Heights was the perfect storm", now says he didn't even mention Shaker Heights.

The "perfect storm", apparently, was a once-in-a-lifetime (if you smoke heavily) combination of bad journalism, sensationalist websites, and French people who don't understand our 'Merakun accents round here. Y'all.

Rokakis compared the article to that of a sensational murder article that "gets everything right except the name of the victim." (And the name of the witness. And the name of the supermarket where the murder took place.)

The PD calls the article a "French reporter's faux pas". Some faux pas. The AFP, through Drudge, just called Shaker Heights a "ghost town" in front of tens of millions of people. Good luck with the property values, folks. Hope you planned on spending a few million to counteract that little chunk of bad publicity.

The only way it could have gotten worse would be if the President talked about it during his State of the Union address while Lindsay Lohan sent out a press release saying she was moving there.

Then again, more people visit Drudge than listened to the State of the Union. And Lindsay would be good for the local bar economy.

This has to be more than a little thing to the folks in Shaker Heights. More than a faux pas, surely.

I remember a huge fuss made a couple of decades ago when Shaker Heights put up traffic barricades between themselves and the City of Cleveland. The New York Times covered it then, dropping the term "racism" into the article at a number of junctures.

I wonder if the Times will cover how Shaker was wrongfully blasted? Will we see a retraction featured on Drudge?

Don't hold your breath, folks.

Traffic barricades may keep cars from flowing from one place into another. Fences may be built to protect the huge homes in Shaker. But, in the digital age, there's no wall high enough to keep bad journalism and sensationalist headlines from ravaging your town.

 

(This one was slapped together by Sirk and Barry)
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