DOES THE OLDHAM ERA GIVE FAIR AND BALANCED COVERAGE

In the May 5, 2010 issue of the Oldham Era a huge story was written about Magistrate Scott Davis. The story was centered on an allegation, made by a woman from Texas, that Davis had taken money from her for Kentucky Derby tickets and then failed to deliver the tickets to her. However, he did deliver tickets to her for the Kentucky Oaks.

It appeared to me that the Oldham Era completely took the word of the woman although no charges had been filed against Davis. The management at the newspaper stated that they did try to contact Magistrate Davis but was unable to reach him. Therefore, the Era ran the story without any input from Davis. After all, a deadline had to be met and that was more important than getting both sides of the story.

It is true that the Era did try to contact Davis – at least the Era left a message for me stating that they wanted to talk to him. I relayed their message to Magistrate Scott Davis and his attorney, Thomas Clay, later spoke with the Oldham Era.

I spoke with Clay on Wednesday evening regarding the allegations. At that time he advised me that Steve Masiello, an assistant basketball coach with the University of Louisville men’s basketball program, had failed to deliver derby tickets to Magistrate Scott Davis after he had paid Masiello $70,000 for tickets that he was to deliver to his clients, including the woman from Texas. Clay also advised me that he had given this information to the Oldham Era earlier in the day and that the Era had told him that since their paper had already gone to press their web site would have an updated article regarding the incident.

I checked the Era web site on Wednesday night and no story regarding the incident was there. However, during a call Thursday night with Clarissa Williams, Managing Editor of the Era and Jackie Stoess Hack, the Editor of the Era, I was told that the site was updated with another story at 11:30am on Thursday. However, Masiello’s name was not mentioned. I asked why his name was not in the issue and I was told that no charges had been filed against him and that they were concerned because of liability.

Let’s take a look at this. Scott Davis had not been charged with anything, and still hasn’t, but yet the Era was willing to take the word of a person from Texas that she had been the victim of a scam and print a story. On the other hand, they were not willing to take the word of a local well known attorney and write a story about Steve Masiello. I believe that you get the picture.

I asked the Era if they had tried to contact Steve Masiello and they told me that they had not. I told them that I had called him so they obviously knew that I had his phone number but they didn’t bother to ask me for it. Could it be that they did not want to hear anything else or were they afraid to call him? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

One more issue to be considered is that Magistrate Scott Davis has not been accused of any crime by the police. On the other hand, Paula Gish, candidate for Oldham County Judge/Executive is being investigated for possibly having violated federal laws. Further, Kevin Eldridge has been sued for failing to comply with Kentucky’s open record laws and Judge Duane Murner has been found guilty of having violated those same open records laws. I doubt if as much was written by the Oldham Era about all of those cases combined as they wrote about Magistrate Davis.

Does it sound like I am trying to defend Davis? Well, I am. There is just an inequity here that bothers me. If Davis is charged with something and found guilty I believe that he should pay the penalty. However, until that happens he should be given the same consideration as other officials in the county.

Let us not forget that if it were not for this site, it is doubtful that anyone would have reported that Oldham County had been alleged to have violated the civil rights of a Shelby County police officer. There was a federal lawsuit filed and neither the Oldham Era nor the Courier-Journal reported about it until I reported it on this web site. Surely, if a tiny web site with nobody but me to report can find out these things you would think that a county-wide newspaper would know what is happening

Thus, does the Oldham Era give fair and balanced coverage? That is your call.