October 26, 2011

Town Supervisor Candidates on WHCU

You can hear incumbent Democratic Supervisor Mary Ann Sumner and Republican challenger Bruno Schickel on WHCU podcasts.

One minor point - I'm pretty irritated with Dave Vieser for badly summarizing this piece, and making it easy for Schickel to dismiss. I know it's hard to squash a written story with quotes into a radio-length question, but that was terrible.

Posted by simon at October 26, 2011 12:32 PM in , ,
Note on photos

6 Comments

Jason said:

I heard his "answer" about the lawsuit. It was just more of the Shickel shuffle.

Dave Vieser said:

Simon:

Thanks for your constructive criticism, but next time pick the right blog post that I used for the question--it was specifically your "prophet of doom" blog regarding Henry Kramer.

My question to the candidate was based on my perspective on what you wrote--and nothing more.

You know my email and my telephone number--if the question bothered you--maybe you should give me a call--next time.

Dave Vieser--again said:

You know what--scratch my last comment--it was the blog you posted and I quoted you verbatim!!!

Wow--and you get pissed over that--it was your own words in the last line of the freakin' blog you wrote yourslef your quote---let me reming you-

quoting YOUR POST:
"You know, this really doesn't even begin to add up to the Town Board painting a target on Dryden. It adds up to a local group opposed to the ban that encouraged industry to come sue Dryden in particular in the hope that they could flip the ban and the election. Schickel spun this one way too hard."

Now listen back to my question--what exactly is your issue with me Simon, really now, I know this is silly season for political people like you--but really now...frankly, I nailed that question, even better than I first thought--and you know what, I am DAMN proud of it.

Congratulations, Dave, for getting this wrong again.

First you misquote me, then you seem to misquote yourself to justify it.

The terrible question you asked Bruno, at 2:06 to 2:30 in that interview, was:

---------------------
Dave Vieser: Well let me ask you this, cause Simon St.Laurent, who's a big Democrat there, he has a blog, Living in Dryden, he accuses you and Henry Kramer of getting the gas industry involved in pushing for a lawsuit in the Town of Dryden to flip this election. That was his words.

Bruno Schickel: That's ridiculous. I mean until the lawsuit came out, I didn't even know how to pronounce this gas company's name.
---------------------

I didn't claim anywhere in that article (or anywhere, actually) that Bruno had personally been involved in getting the gas companies involved. He's always denied his involvement in the DSEC.

You let him off the hook by asking him if he was personally involved in those conversations, something I've never ever claimed.

The piece Bruno remains utterly wrong about - and which you let him dodge by botching this question - is his nonsense he gave WSKG and others about "They essentially put a target on their backs, saying sue us first," he says."

The Town did NOT say "sue us first". The DSEC did that, and boasts about it on their website.

To the extent that you "nailed" that question, you nailed the wrong thing to the wrong place. If that's what makes you "DAMN proud", I really have to worry.

Dave Vieser--one last time said:

I could care less what he said to WSKG. The last line of your blog post is what I care about...and what that question was about.

Quoting your post AGAIN--VERBATIM:
"You know, this really doesn't even begin to add up to the Town Board painting a target on Dryden. It adds up to a local group opposed to the ban that encouraged industry to come sue Dryden in particular in the hope that they could flip the ban and the election. Schickel spun this one way too hard."

You put his name in the very next sentence from "they could flip the ban".

My perception (and those who do not spend every waking hour worrying about Dryden politics) as follows:

Schichkel is clearly part of that "local group" you mention in the previous paragraph, ergo I asked the question I did--sorry if you didn't like it--but I used YOUR WORDS...

Okay, Dave.

"The last line of your blog post is what I care about...and what that question was about."

So to put it bluntly, I deserve to have my carefully-written piece drastically misquoted because you can't be bothered to read the whole thing?

Seriously?

That's not journalism - that's spin.

I thought for a moment I must have left out the last paragraph break before "Schickel spun", which might make your misreading plausible, but I didn't even make that mistake.

Schickel is not, so far as I've ever heard or said, a member of the "local group" the article was clearly about, the Dryden Safe Energy Coalition.

If you're going to use other people's words, and especially if you want to throw them back in their faces, you really should read them first.