FINAL NAIL IN THE REPORTING COFFIN?

Minebuster has long warned readers of this blog that the Shelburne Free Press/Orangeville Citizen, particularly Wes the Crypt Keeper Keller, are biased in their reporting regarding the Mega Quarry.

From the beginning (January 2009) Wes was writing that the grass roots group opposing the mega quarry were wasting people's time and money, they should just "settle" for a 100 acres, they were fear mongering, etc. etc. 

All the while the paper for which he "wrote" was taking Highlands, at times, weekly $900 buck ads. 

In fact some of the "articles" that appeared in the paper were nothing more than press releases of Highlands that had been rewritten.

Then this blog advised people that Wes wasn't even showing up for meetings, just writing (NOT reporting) from agendas and minutes.  He would attribute statements to people and make the statement such as "Mr. XXX was not reached for comment". 

What that means is they were not contacted at all.

Well not only has Wes been cribbing from agendas and minutes, apparently also from other reporter's articles.

In today's Free Press/Orangeville Citizen is this:

APOLOGY TO THE BANNER
Last week’s issue contained an article on page A9 which clearly should not have been published. Headlined, “Foodstock was overwhelming for one farmer,” the excellent article was from the previous Tuesday’s edition of the Orangeville Banner.

The article had been downloaded from the Banner’s website by freelancer Wes Keller, who had planned to produce a similar piece based on his own interviews, but was unfortunately submitted in the document with Mr. Keller’s story on Foodstock. Since the second article lacked any byline or other indication of its external source, it appeared to the Editor to be a “sidebar” and accordingly was run in addition to Mr. Keller’s Foodstock article.
In the circumstances, the article was obviously published without the prior knowledge or approval of The Banner and without crediting the writer of The Banner article, Bill Tremblay. We acknowledge that publication of The Banner's article was contrary to basic principles of responsible journalism. We sincerely apologize to The Banner and to Bill Tremblay for this error. http://www.citizen.on.ca/news/2011-10-27/Local_News/An_apology_to_The_Banner.html

And here is the Banner's item on this little slip up.

ORANGEVILLE CITIZEN APOLOGIES FOR COPYING BANNER

Owners of the Orangeville Citizen were forced to publicly apologize today (Oct. 27), after they published an article taken from The Banner.
The article in question — Quarry protest never tasted so delicious — appeared on the front page of this newspaper’s Oct. 18 print edition and was posted on www.orangeville.com a day earlier under a similar headline.
A nearly identical version, containing no independently conducted interviews or research, was published in The Citizen last Thursday (Oct. 20).
Use of the article was not authorized and demonstrates a clear infringement of copyright laws.
“We are very upset and embarrassed that such a mistake like this has occurred,” Alan Claridge, publisher of the Orangeville Citizen, wrote in an email to The Banner’s publisher Ken Nugent.
Claridge went on to claim the “mistake” was the result of how information is collected for news articles appearing in that newspaper. http://www.orangeville.com/news/local/article/1232764--orangeville-citizen-apologies-for-copying-banner

And the funniest thing? Highlands uses Wes’s wisdom on their website to support their quarry…..

http://www.melancthonquarry.ca/index.php/site/latest/entrenched_in_the_silly_season

SLAM...SHUT