Doug Dawgz Blog: July 2011

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 19, 2011: COUNCILMAN ED SHADID NAMES LARRY NICHOLS AS THE PRINCIPAL FORCE BEHIND THE COMMITTEE FOR OKLAHOMA CITY MOMENTUM AND SUGGESTS THAT CITY GOVERNMENT IS A PLUTOCRACY ...

... or so the headline may have read in the Oklahoman on July 20 following the breaking news story.

Listen to the 3:50 video clip below from the July 19 City Council meeting and judge for yourselves whether Shadid's remarks rise to the level of being newsworthy for reporting in a daily Oklahoma City newspaper ...

The Oklahoman did not see the above as "news" since it has not, to this date, reported on the above July 19 remarks by councilman Shadid as relates to the Committee for Oklahoma City Momentum and Larry Nichols.

Why is that?

One possible explanation is that Ed Shadid's remarks were not deemed newsworthy. Excerpts from councilman Shadid's remarks are ...

        The election has to be vetted. You have to understand ... I don't think that we can operate under the threat or reward of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on the next city council elections if we do or do not fall into favor with a certain individual or a small group of individuals.
***
        The identity of this individual is now spreading, it's going to come out, and I don't think it can be stopped. [After identifying Larry Nichols as the ideological and financial force being behind "secret" campaigns run by Momentum in the recent council elections, he continues ...] Everyone indicates that Larry Nichols is a very good man that deeply loves Oklahoma City, that he for me personally would be a tremendous ally in building density and walkability and a healthy city, but he, and the people around him are engaging in policy making similar to the way a surgeon does surgery — they are telling who and what to do and then executing.
        It's not particularly democratic.
        You can have a benevolent plutocracy, you can agree that what he is doing is best for the city, but it's still a plutocracy and not a representative democracy.
        There is no evidence that he or anyone else in the convention center subcommittee has altered the decision making for their own personal gain or the gain of their company. There is absolutely no evidence of that and I want to make that clear.
        But we place a tremendous amount of decision making authority and thought [?] and influence in one person's hands, and I think it's legitimate to ask the question,
Could any human being objectively make decisions for the betterment of all the people when so much ... uh, the Devon company, the ex-CEO of Devon, is the chairman of the Urban Renewal Authority, we've made him chairman of the Alliance for Economic Development and just provided them, that non-profit, with $700,000, he's on the board of governors of the Myriad Gardens Foundation, the Industrial and Cultural Activities Board, and until 2008 the Redevelopment Authority.
        I want to move past this, but I think that for there to be healing and for us to, uh ... I think this ... I [audio not clear ... not in favor of?] holding resentment and not publicly vetting them, I think the healthiest thing to do is put it out there instead of festering, let us vett it, let some healing occur, let us figure out a way that the private sector and the Firefighters cannot mingle to that degree in our elections, and then let's move forward.

HOLY BATMAN ... that's a news story. The words he spoke during the City Council meeting were deemed newsworthy by the weekly Oklahoma Gazette which reported on the matter in a July 19 article by Clifton Adcock, and again in another Clifton Adcock article on July 27. In a July 19 article by Brian Brus, the Journal Record did the same (that article is also at the end of this piece) ... reported the news.

By the time Shadid made his comments at the July 19 council meeting, the morning Oklahoman had already been published, even though Shadid's remarks were nonetheless reported on July 19 in the Oklahoma Gazette and Journal Record, the Oklahoman could be forgiven for not doing so until its July 20 edition.

The respective articles which appeared in the Oklahoma Gazette and Journal Record reported on July 19, in part, are as follows:

Oklahoma Gazette, July 19
        In the first regular Oklahoma City Council meeting since a contentious one two weeks prior, Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid asked that the council begin the process of healing some of the discord it has experienced.
        [Shadid] also stated during today’s meeting that one of the most powerful men in Oklahoma City was behind a much-criticized election campaign and held sway over many of the important decisions made in the city. Shadid named Devon Energy Executive Chairman Larry Nichols (pictured below) as one of the driving forces behind this year’s City Council elections.
        During the election, an incumbent — former Ward 5 Councilman Brian Walters — was attacked by an independent expenditure group named Committee for Oklahoma City Momentum, for which money was funneled from the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s Forward IV program through a nonprofit group. Nichols is listed as Forward OKC vice chair, according to the chamber’s website.
        Momentum also went after Shadid in its campaign, and backed opponent Charlie Swinton.
        “That campaign was very cynical. It rewarded one candidate for being liberal and progressive, and then chastised another for being liberal and progressive. It wasn’t that somebody was spending all that money because they believed in that particular political ideology. Something else was at play,” Shadid said. “Many people who are in a position to know are indicating that the primary ideological and financial force behind this campaign was Larry Nichols.”
        A Devon spokesman said Nichols was unavailable for comment.

‘Benevolent plutocracy'
        Shadid said Nichols, who sits on multiple public boards and subcommittees, wields an enormous amount of power, and expressed concern that it was not good for a democracy that only a few high-powered individuals make decisions that affect everyone.
        “Everyone indicates Larry Nichols is a very good man who deeply loves Oklahoma City, that he for me personally would be a tremendous ally for building density and walkability and a healthy city, but he and the people around him are engaging in policy making the way a surgeon does surgery: They’re telling everyone what to do and then executing,” said Shadid, a spinal surgeon. “It’s not particularly democratic. You can have a benevolent plutocracy, you could agree that what he is doing is best for the city, but it’s still a plutocracy and not a representative democracy.”
(See this link for the full article, and this later article, as well)

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Journal Record, July 19
        Councilman Ed Shadid put a name to the head of what he called a plutocracy making most of the major economic decisions in Oklahoma City and the latest council elections: former Devon Energy Chief Executive Larry Nichols.
        “I don’t think we can operate under the threat or reward of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent in the next City Council elections if we do or do not fall into favor with a certain individual or small group of individuals,” Shadid told his peers on the council Tuesday morning.
        “Larry Nichols is a very good man that deeply loves Oklahoma City,” Shadid said. “But he and the people around him are engaging in policymaking similar to the way a surgeon does surgery. They are telling everyone what to do and then executing. It is not particularly democratic.”
        Nichols was offered an opportunity to respond. Spokesman Chip Minty said Nichols was not available for an interview.

(See the full article at the end of this piece)

Both of the above articles indicated that an attempt had been made to receive the input of Larry Nichols, but that he was either unavailable or declined to comment. Hmmm ...

Now, whoa, that's at least one huge Oklahoma City news story, unless I'm badly mistaken.

The next morning, I eagerly went outside my home, sunrise not yet occurring, to put my grubby hands on my subscription copy of the Oklahoman eagerly waiting to see how it covered the story. I picked up the paper on the walkway that leads to our front porch, sat down in a chair on the porch, and opened the paper. At dawn's early light, I looked ... and looked ... and looked.

The story wasn't there.

The July 20 Oklahoman did not cover the story. By implication, it made no attempts to get Larry Nichols' input as to Shadid's remarks nor did the Oklahoman even cover the story on July 20, July 21, July 22, July 23, July 24, July 25, July 26, July 27, or July 28, the date this blog piece is posted. The Oklahoman has never covered the news story at all — it's just as though this newsworthy story never happened.

The Oklahoman, despite its layoffs, still has a reporter covering City Council, doesn't it? (That's a rhetorical question, since, yes, it does ... I'll not name the reporter's name since the lack of reporting was probably not his fault.)

For the answer to the question, "Why didn't the Oklahoman cover this news story," one is left to one's intellectual resources since the Oklahoman has not given a reason for not reporting on this story, even though the Gazette and Journal Record did. The June 17, 2011, article by Jim Kyle, a 1950s Oklahoman reporter, gives strong clues. In that article, he said,

First and foremost, it [a newspaper] is a business, and the purpose isn't to serve the public, but to make a profit for the owners.
That often leads to compromise of one's conscience. It's not very much like the image presented by Perry White of The Daily Planet in the Superman strips. I learned early that my profession was not "saving the world" but instead "creating tomorrow's garbage wrapper." Some information that would have embarrassed "important people" never saw print; some arrests went unreported.

In his audio interview, he added,

But, I also learned the seamy side of the newspaper business ... found out how often we had to compromise with our consciences things that might embarrass an advertiser frequently didn't get reported and if "important people" would be offended, again, the story would not see the light of day.

My personal speculation is that Jim's observations provide at least part of the answer to the question, "Why didn't the Oklahoman chose not to report on Shadid's comments about Larry Nichols before the City Council?"

The additional speculative answer, and my more darker thought, is that Larry Nichols and the Oklahoman's owners are in common cause and are in league each with each other, and the Oklahoman simply does not publish articles which are critical of the other members of the league. A reader will need to make his/her own judgment about that.

The Oklahoman as a newspaper is one of the most historic pieces of our city's history. While not the city's first newspaper, it is the only pre-1900 paper that has not only survived to the present day but, not only that, has become the dominant written press in our city's history. In the 1900s, it's competition was either acquired (Oklahoma City Times) or died (e.g., the Oklahoma News, 1906-1939, a Scripps Howard paper, and W.P. Bill Atkinson's Oklahoma Journal, 1964-1980, and a few others in the early 1900s).

Today, the Oklahoman has no realistic local print competition other than the weekly Gazette, distributed freely, and the Journal Record which has a small circulation amongst the business community. And maybe some bloggers like me which few people read. Most radio journalism is nationally-politically polarized and is only listened to if one wants to hear the voices of people who already agree with them ... hardly journalism — an exception being the Gwin Faulkner-Lippert Sunday evening 7:00 p.m. broadcast on KTOK-Radio. Serious television journalism hardly exists perhaps excepting the Sunday news presentation by OETA-TV which does deal in depth with some issues, that which can be done within the space of one hour's time. Otherwise, tune in to channel 9 in the morning and witness the effusive cuteness of a man and a woman making sickeningly sweet fools of themselves — yuch — not news, not journalism, and very difficult to watch unless one is also as silly as they are in one's mindset.

Given the controversy over the spring elections and the Committee For Oklahoma City Momentum and the identity of those who secretly contributed and spent $486,041 to run nasty political campaigns in Wards 2, 5, 6 and 8, when Ward 2 councilman Ed Shadid identified Larry Nichols as at least the principal contributor in the July 19 City Council meeting, that would be an item of news, one would suppose.

But not in the Oklahoman. The Oklahoman only presents news stories that it wants you to see, hides those that it doesn't, and even when reporting on something newsworthy one reads only a succinct summary of what one would read in "big league" newspapers in which articles develop important stories into something more than those succinct summaries we read in the Oklahoman. Get a copy of the Dallas Morning News for one of several possible comparisons.

To be sure, the Oklahman did run an editorial which was critical of Shadid's July 19 views as they pertain to convention center issues in its July 28 edition, although the part about Larry Nichols and the election process was not brought up in that editorial. So that you'll see for yourselves what Shadid had said about that, here's the July 19 video containing his full remarks:

In part, the unattributed editorial, but clearly with the ownership and management of the Oklahoman behind it, states, in part:

ED Shadid invites comparisons to Ralph Nader for his tenacious vigilance concerning suspected impropriety. Perhaps a better comparison for the Oklahoma City councilman is Don Quixote: Shadid's quest to prove impropriety in the matter of the MAPS 3 convention center borders on the obsessive.

The editorial also took issue with the July 13 2-page Oklahoma Gazette advertisement that Shadid wrote. The editorial did everything but call Shadid a "bad man."

So, what's the bottom-line answer?

Mine is to discontinue my decades-long subscription to the Oklahoman. I understand that is a miniscule choice compared to the mightiness of the Oklahoman, but that's really all that I can do. I mean, we didn't "elect" the Oklahoman to be our newspaper, did we ... and so we can't "unelect" the Oklahoman, either. But one less subscriber can be coupled with others and it might make a difference, one way or another.

When reading the paper on my home's front porch in the morning with my wife as we have our first cup of coffee, we typically agree, "That was a short read ... wish we had a better newspaper."

Do you not say the same thing yourselves? If the Oklahoman should fold, a piece of our history would be gone ... the Gaylord influences included ... but who's to say that something better would not rise like a phoenix to take its place?

While it remains, if I want to see the better parts of it (like Steve Lackmeyer's articles or local sports coverage), I can read that on-line. If and when it is gone, you can bet that Lackmeyer stories and local sports coverage will be prominently found, somewhere else.

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we're free at last.

And that's not a bad solution for us, or for anyone else.

On edit: Actually, my wife is the Oklahoman subscriber in my household. I will reason with her to suggest that a better alternative exists in lieu of the Oklahoman is available and possible for our early morning visits on the front porch. She already agrees that that is so, so it shouldn't be a hard sell. She is, after all, in the "old school" naming structure of things, a "Yellow Dog Democrat."

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Appendix

Journal Record
By Brian Brus
July 19, 2011

        OKLAHOMA CITY – Councilman Ed Shadid put a name to the head of what he called a plutocracy making most of the major economic decisions in Oklahoma City and the latest council elections: former Devon Energy Chief Executive Larry Nichols.
        “I don’t think we can operate under the threat or reward of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent in the next City Council elections if we do or do not fall into favor with a certain individual or small group of individuals,” Shadid told his peers on the council Tuesday morning.
        “Larry Nichols is a very good man that deeply loves Oklahoma City,” Shadid said. “But he and the people around him are engaging in policymaking similar to the way a surgeon does surgery. They are telling everyone what to do and then executing. It is not particularly democratic.”
        Nichols was offered an opportunity to respond. Spokesman Chip Minty said Nichols was not available for an interview.
        Shadid, who was elected earlier this year to his first term on the council, has said frequently that he is frustrated that the council seems to collectively set aside research or other feedback that runs counter to a particular sense of economic momentum. He has questioned, for example, why council members have relied so heavily on a study by Convention Sports and Leisure consulting group to predict the ultimate success of a new convention center in the MAPS 3 tax issue project package.
        Shadid recently ran a two-page advertisement in a local weekly newspaper after council members chose to set a MAPS 3 project timeline instead of deferring the item until he returned to town. The convention center was bumped forward on the project list, pushing other work back. Shadid has questioned the efficacy of that decision and whether citizens advisory committees were given enough opportunity to give their perspective on the issue.
        Nichols serves on the MAPS 3 convention center subcommittee that urged the council to move the project ahead.
        Nichols has several civic responsibilities. He is currently chairman of the Urban Renewal Authority and serves on the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s Forward OKC program, the Industrial and Cultural Facilities Trust, the Myriad Gardens board of directors and the MAPS 3 convention center subcommittee.
        Nichols, who is now executive chairman of Devon, also was largely responsible for the establishment of Project 180, a $175 million streetscape renovation project that will dramatically redesign downtown over three years.
        Chamber President Roy Williams said Nichols is to be commended for taking a leadership position in so many areas. He also said Nichols did not seek out the responsibility.
        “You only have in a community the power you are given,” Williams said. “He gets asked to do a whole lot of things in this community; he does not request to chair boards. People go to him on bended knee and say, ‘Would you do this?’ He’s not out there lobbying to get leadership roles.
        “Where would a community be without leaders?” Williams said. “Where would a community be if people didn’t step up, if people didn’t put their resources into something, if people weren’t committed to their community? Most people don’t sit around thinking, what would move our community forward? They don’t know. They have an expectation that elected officials and community leaders have big dreams and big ideas.”
        Shadid, a spinal surgeon, won his election against stiff opposition. He survived an initial field of eight candidates for Ward 2 and made the runoff against banking executive Charlie Swinton. Public records showed Shadid was his own largest source of funding, with $78,725 in total contributions.
        That figure pales in comparison to financing from the Committee for Oklahoma City Momentum, which supported candidates in Ward 2 and three other council seats. That political action committee, or PAC, had received $415,000 in contributions by the end of March, and its only contributor was a group called A Better Oklahoma City Inc., which was not required by law to reveal the identities of its members.
        But the chamber confirmed several of its members were contributors to A Better Oklahoma City Inc. through Forward OKC IV, one of the chamber’s economic development arms. Devon is a member of Forward OKC IV.
        The financing of this year’s council elections was not based on a consistent political ideology, Shadid said Tuesday.
        “That campaign was very cynical. It rewarded one candidate for being liberal and progressive and chastised another for being liberal and progressive,” Shadid said. “Something else was at play. … The primary ideological and financial force behind this election campaign was Larry Nichols.”
        There is no evidence that Nichols or anyone associated with him has influenced decisions in economic development for personal gain, Shadid said. Shadid said that he was not suggesting otherwise.
        The problem Shadid said he’s worried about is that too much power and authority is being held by one person.
        “Could any human being objectively make decisions for the betterment of all the people?” he said. “You can have a benevolent plutocracy; you could agree that what he’s doing is best for the city. But it’s still a plutocracy and not a representative democracy.”
        The healthiest course of action for city leaders is to make transparent the relationships between private and public sectors, even if that creates friction, Shadid said.