Dayton Daily shows bias and amateur journalistic skills

There is a reason Gary Leitzell has learned not to talk to the media in Dayton- they play favorites, misquote, fail to attribute and generally skew the news. The push poll story was a perfect example of why when he does, it’s a waste of time.

It’s always been known that Cox lives for fear. “If it bleeds, it leads” was the subject of a short documentary done by some WSU film students almost 30 years ago- and it continues today with “ScareCenter 7” and the DDn.

For example, in today’s article about Nan Whaley’s push poll, which Dayton first learned about on Esrati.com ^[1], there is no link or mention of this site. The story does have a link to Gary’s site (note it’s a general link- and not to the actual article so it will prove useless over time, unfortunately, the site is on the blogger platform and I can’t do any better the  correct link is http://www.daytonmayor.blogspot.com/2013/02/been-push-polled-lately.html ^[2])  and uses one of the poll questions which refers to something Gary said on my site (which I linked to in my article).

“I am disgusted,” Leitzell posted on garyleitzell.com ^[3]. “Commissioner Whaley has disgraced herself and has proven that she can never be a role model for our children. She really needs to apologize to the citizens of Dayton for attempting to divide the community.”

One of the poll questions included the statement, “Leitzell recently commented on a blog that he wants to raise his pay as mayor to $90,000 a year.”Leitzell said Whaley should “probably resign her seat as City Commissioner because she is not acting in the best interests of the city and should be ashamed of what she is allowing to happen.”

One of the poll questions included the statement, “Leitzell recently commented on a blog that he wants to raise his pay as mayor to $90,000 a year.”

The mayor said he had jokingly posted a comment on a local blog that his aide had resigned and that he would love to get paid more to handle his own scheduling.

Leitzell wrote, “If the people want to pay me $90,000 so my wife can quit work and be a stay at home mom and full time educator I could handle it. Even if I had to print all those proclamations and type out the marriage certificates myself.

via Poll angers Dayton mayor candidates | www.daytondailynews.com ^[4].

I’m also leaving in the repeated content that still appeared on the DDn site this AM despite me telling their staff it was repeated last night.

At the end of this article is also makes reference to “Whaley and Wagner are both Democrats, who face-off in the May primary.”

To be perfectly correct, there is no May primary in the Dayton City Commission or Mayor’s race yet. So far only Nan has turned in enough signatures to appear on the ballot for Mayor and Joey Williams and David Esrati are the only candidates for Commission. It will take at least 2 more candidates certified for Mayor and 4 more certified for Commission to have a primary. Also note, despite David Esrati actually qualifying for the ballot ^[5], the only coverage has been a single tweet by “Ohio Politics” which belongs to the Dayton Daily ^[6]. When Darryl Fairchild “announced” he was running for City Commission, he got a story, top front of the local section, with a photo ^[7]– despite not having turned in petitions and eventually dropping out of the race when the Democratic Party told him it wasn’t his time- and endorsed Jeff Mims ^[8].

For a full list of POTENTIAL candidates for Mayor and Dayton City Commission in 2013, I’ve tried to keep a list here: http://electesrati.com/whos-running-2013/ ^[9]

In another article in today’s paper, about the senseless shooting of a 13 year old by an ex-con, the paper quotes North West Priority Board Chair, David Greer:

David Greer, longtime chairman of Dayton’s Northwest Priority Board, said the community is upset about the recent rash of shootings.

“The senselessness of it all is what one can’t put their finger on,” Greer said. “It’s unfortunate that so many feel that they have to use guns to settle differences.”

via Police seek ex-con in shootings of 2 teens ^[10].

No mention that Mr. Greer is also a candidate for Dayton City Commission, at least by the same standard that both AJ Wagner and Gary Leitzell are candidates for Mayor in that they’ve taken out petitions.

Despite this blog breaking major news on a regular basis (unpaid, uncompensated) it has never been referenced in the Dayton Daily news- and never had a link placed in an article. The Qbase political contribution scandal started here- the DDn got the story almost a year and a half later. In the last week, you would have read about these things first: Dayton Legal Blank closing its doors ^[11], Bank president and Dayton City Commissioner Joey Williams changing jobs ^[12], the First Four party being cancelled ^[13] and the Nan Whaley push poll. Considering the Dayton Daily has the “iTeam” and a whole staff of “journalists” they fail miserably at basic journalistic practices.

If we want a better Dayton, not only do we need better candidates than slime buckets who engage in push-polls, but we need a newspaper that’s unbiased, has integrity and follows fundamental professional standards- you cite your sources.

If this blog didn’t cite via links or attribution the content it quotes from the Dayton Daily news- they’d sue me. I remember having a conversation with their “digital editor” Ray Marcano once where he tried to threaten me for using parts of their content in my posts. It’s one of the reasons I don’t accept advertising on this site to help compensate me for my time- because then they would use that my revenue to claim that I somehow benefited from their “labor.”

Dayton deserves a better newspaper. To the editors and publisher, who’s names don’t deserve to be connected with those terms, you run a rag. And, to top it all off, you were given a heads up on this Push Poll in advance because we like one of your editors. We’ll make sure not to do that in the future (We being, Gary Leitzell and myself). From now on, you can go back to trying to cover the news without help.