Journal has a new education reporter; for all the good it will do

A link to Journal Staff Writer Jon Swedien's recent reports or the Journal, will lead you to a number of recent reports on the APS and a foundation for the supposition that APS is now his beat.

It is fair to say, there is not a critical one among them.

And that is problematic for Journal reading APS interest holders. It is problematic for voters and their efforts to hold School Board Members accountable for holding the Superintendent accountable.

The leadership of the APS would like to be held accountable only for their latest greatest acts.  Their incompetence and corruption, not so much.

For a "newspaper of record", wikilink, to aid and abet the leadership of the APS in a deliberate manipulation of the truth in their own interests is at the very least "journalistic malpractice".  Try holding them accountable for that.  In what venue can it be alleged that the Journal is engaged in ongoing Journalistic malpractice, and where that complaint will see enjoy due process?

Should the Journal report on the good things happening in the APS?  Of course they should; it's newsworthy.  But the truth about their earned success is no more newsworthy than the honest truth about their earned failures.

The earned success at Rio Grande and Highland High Schools, link, is no more newsworthy than the coverup of  senior APS administrative involvement in felony criminal misconduct, link, wanton criminal abuse of a federal criminal database, and the misappropriation of funds.

The earned success in musical education, link, is newsworthy, but no more newsworthy than the fact that the only agency of law enforcement that investigated felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators was APS' own Praetorian Guard; a publicly funded private police force that reports directly to, and only to, the leadership of the APS.  No more newsworthy than that, the findings of their self investigations were never turned over to the DA for prosecution.

I would like to point out that don't hold reporters like Swedien personally responsible for the Journal's malpractice, anymore than I hold the broadcast media "investigative" teams responsible for the orders they aren't given by their news directors.

I hold management accountable.

I hold people like Journal editor Kent Walz personally accountable for the failure to investigate and report upon credible allegations and evidence of a standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

And so should you.




photo Mark Bralley
Walz photo ched macquigg
 

cc Swedien upon posting; including an offer to meet anytime, anywhere, should he be so inclined.