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A friend recently shared this link with me. In it Jerry Norquist, the executive director of Cycle Oregon, discusses how cycling events can bring prosperity to small towns. He gave an example of how one coffee shop owner in the small community where he lives reaped large financial rewards when a bike tour came through town.

Norquist says, "Most rural communities already have the assets that they need to promote cycling tourism. They just don’t know how to harness those assets." 

He says one community on its own may have a difficult time reaching the wider cycling audience, but a statewide effort can spread the word. 

With events like this, this and this, a trail like this and a mountain biking venue in the near future, lots of bike riders are familar with our region. The question is: What are the next steps to spread that reputation as a must-ride place? Please share your ideas. 

Consider this a defense of Anniston Star reporter Laura Camper. In his most recent column, Anniston Star Media Critic Paul Rilling criticized Camper’s July 6 article, “Little: Plans for judicial complex are troubling.”

Rilling, a former editor with The Star, is an experienced journalist. His monthly column is a useful exercise; it allows an independent voice to weigh on the work of the newspaper.

That said, I must respectfully disagree with his findings regarding Camper’s July 6 article.

Rilling wrote:

l l l

A basic rule of news writing is that a news story should “show, not tell.” This means the reporter tells readers what has happened, not the reporter’s or editor’s opinions about it. You don’t write that it was hot yesterday; you write about the temperature, the humidity, comparisons with other years, how people are dealing with it. You show that it was hot.

A July story in The Star, headlined, “Little: Plans for judicial complex are troubling,” told the reader what The Star thinks about Councilman Ben Little’s opposition to the judicial complex (July 6, Page 1A)

In the lead paragraph, it said, “Councilman Ben Little has made a point of questioning the way the proposed judicial complex has moved forward at council meetings and ward meetings, but has made no specific allegations nor offered any proof to back up his claims.”

The article, by Laura Camper, told readers what to think, then went on to support that viewpoint. The story is presented as a front-page news story but no new developments were reported. It made a good case for its point of view, but it belonged in the commentary pages.

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In light of this critique, I revisited the article in question. By my count, it contains 29 statements of fact; most of them center on Little’s frequent allegations of wrongdoing on the part of those working on the city’s proposed judicial complex. To date, none of the officials mentioned in the article have challenged any of its facts.

The purpose of the article was to examine Little’s accusations and his failure thus far to provide any evidence for them. Little, an elected official, has repeatedly alleged corruption on the part of the entity charged with overseeing the construction of the judicial center, the Public Building Authority. Little’s allegations have taken place and continue to take place during public sessions of the City Council.

While reporting the article, Camper offered Councilman Little an opportunity to spell out the details of his allegations and produce evidence of them. Little declined, saying, “The PBA board knows what has been done and how things have unfolded.”

Several items are important to keep in mind:

l Little is accusing members of a municipal authority of wrongdoing, the sort that could be a violation of criminal law.

l Little’s allegations are made in a public forum, which is aired live on The Star’s website.

Journalists are not stenographers. In its code of ethics, the Society of Professional Journalists writes that reporters should, “Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.”

That is what Camper and The Star did in the July 6 article. Quite simply, we asked a public official for evidence of frequently asserted claims. He declined, and we reported that he declined and put his opposition to the project in context. Reporters’ and editors’ personal opinions on Little and his opposition to the judicial complex project were (a.) not voiced and (b.) wholly irrelevant to the article in question.

Despite a diligent search of the story, I can find no support for the claim that The Star told “the reader what The Star thinks about Councilman Ben Little’s opposition to the judicial complex.”

We continue to work out some kinks with our new Facebook commenting system at AnnistonStar.com.

One way readers can help is by reporting inappropriate language in our comments by selecting the “REPORT” button to the right of each comment.

Here's how: Move your mouse to the right-side of the comment  and an “X” appears. Clicking it gives a user the option to “Mark as Spam” or “Report as Abuse” comments that violate our terms of use – no name-calling, no abusive or profane language and no personal attacks.

Doing this will help us better police comments, and that is something that creates a more civil exchange.

 - Bob Davis, Editor