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A wire story in today's Philadelphia Daily News refers to an organization led by Pennsylvania white supremacist Steve Smith as a “white people's rights group” and does not discuss Smith's long history with the neo-Nazi movement.
The article, about a dispute over an event permit, was originally published in the Scranton Times-Tribune and picked up by the Associated Press.
The original sin certainly lies with the Times-Tribune, but why did the phrase “white people's rights group” make it past editors at the Daily News?
“I suggest you call AP and the Scranton Times-Tribune,” says Daily News city editor Gar Joseph.
It appears that the $2 billion William Penn Foundation will cut funding to the Philadelphia Student Union, which organizes young people throughout city public schools. And so PSU needs your support.
"For 17 years our foundation partners have helped pay the salaries of our hardworking staff and keep the computers on in our media lab," according to a PSU fundraising appeal. "As the City Paper has reported recently a foundation that has been one of our largest funders for over 10 years will probably not renew our funding this Fall. We've known this for some time and have planned and fundraised accordingly. We have a little over a year to replace this funder."
Last month, City Paper reported that William Penn is taking a new direction under president Jeremy Nowak: raising millions to fund a controversial and corporate-minded restructuring plan authored by the Boston Consulting Group; while cutting funds to community and youth organizers who are critical of privatization.
My previous education cover story, "Who's Killing Philly Public Schools?," related how PSU led the fight against privatization and the state takeover in 2001 and what that means for the District's current crisis.
Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir
“Oh no they didn't” is Daniel Denvir's weekly blog post on last week's state politics. Philadelphians know precious little about the legislature or governor, but pretending that Tom Corbett doesn't exist will not make him go away. Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir.
You probably didn't know that Pennsylvania maintains a “Voter Hall of Fame” honoring citizens who have exercised the franchise in every November election for fifty years straight. 1,384 of the 5,923 Hall of Famers analyzed, or nearly 25-percent, may not have the identification necessary to vote this November thanks to the state's controversial new voter ID law.
“I just read it in the paper just recently,” says Edith Haagen, a 91-year old from Clinton County who does not have ID. Haagen, a Democrat who worked for the state as a clerk-typist before her retirement, remembers casting a vote for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “I've done it all my life. And it's a shame when you can't.”
The Hall of Fame was created at a time, it seems, when the government at least pretended they wanted people to vote.
To learn more about SEPTA, fans, or standing in one place -- follow Isaiah Thompson on Twitter.
Of the many subtle touches SEPTA uses to enhances its subway stations, a personal favorite during this hot summer has been the giant fans the agency installs and points at ... what often appear to be completely random spots on the floor.
To enjoy this little fringe benefit, customer, just position yourself directly on the random piece of floor at which the fan is inexplicably pointed and remain standing.
But hurry - many of these fans are positioned so as to reach one -- and only one -- person at a time; tarry, and you might find that precious random spot taken.
Follow Isaiah Thompson on twitter.
When a two-year-old girl was shot, among three others, at an outdoor party and police were unable to find suspects, city officials pointed fingers at the community in which the crime took place, accusing residents of clamming up and not helping police.
Philadelphia public safety director Michael Resnik described a “total apathy” on the part of neighbors, “plus, maybe, an acceptance that this is the way it is.” He was sure, he added, that “word’s out on the street” as to who committed the crime.
Negrin was even more blunt. The lack of information was “inexcusable on the part of that community,” he told the Daily News. “Everybody there knows who the shooters were.”
Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky weighed in. “If they don’t care about their community, why should we?” he began, leaving the they/we distinction to the imagination. He concluded, “I can understand why people who live in civilized communities might want to wash their hands of those who have thrown in with the thugs.”
An entire neighborhood unwilling to come forward even to find justice for the shooting of a little girl — it’s a harsh, provocative story, a real teaching moment.
Except there’s almost no evidence it’s true.
Click here for the rest of the story from this week's edition.
“Oh no they didn't” is Daniel Denvir's weekly blog post on last week's state politics. Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir
"To ask me to enforce something that violates civil rights is ludicrous and absolutely something I am not willing to do,” Colwyn Democratic inspector of elections Christopher L. Broach told the Inquirer last week.
In a little-remembered moment during the 2010 campaign, Governor Tom Corbett told a gathering of suburban Republicans to “keep down” Philadelphia's Democratic voter turnout.
“We want to make sure that they don't get 50-percent [voter turnout],” he said, referring to Philadelphia Democrats. “Keep that down."
The item generated some news media attention at the time but has gone unmentioned during the current debate over the state's contentious new voter ID requirement, which could keep Democratic-leaning student, black, Latino, poor and elderly voters from the polls this November.
“It is extremely disturbing, but not surprising, that Tom Corbett is actively working to suppress the vote in Philadelphia,” State Democratic Chairman Jim Burn told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette two years ago.
Pennsylvania Republicans drew loads of unwanted attention to the law when House Majority leader Mike Turzai boasted in June that the law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
The law is currently being challenged in Commonwealth Court, and the ACLU and other rights groups intend to play the video of Turzai's speech at trial.
“Any doubt,” according to the plaintiff's pretrial brief, that the law is not about “ensuring political advantage through the exclusion of qualified voters who are perceived supporters of the opposition” was “dispelled when the House Majority leader, Mike Turzai, candidly boasted to his colleagues.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has also opened an investigation into whether the law violates the federal Voting Rights Act.
The new law requires voters to show ID at the polls (see the valid forms of ID here). But the state, which originally said that 99 percent of voters had valid ID, has absolutely no idea how many people might be impacted.
Yesterday, City Paper reported that up to 43 percent of Philadelphians may not have valid ID. And Corbett earlier this week expressed confusion about the law's requirements when questioned by a reporter.
It's Good News/Bad News, a new feature the Naked City totally hopes to bring you regularly, in which we separate the chaff from the wheat in local media and offer ridicule or praise, as needed.
This week: BAD NEWS.
They say a picture's worth a thousand words — but maybe not when the picture has almost nothing at all to do with the words in question, and is possibly offensive to boot.
Like, for example, the above photo, featured on Page 8 of today's Daily News, in an article about the West Oak Lane murder of 43-year-old Eric Murray, a father and grandfather who had recently gotten out of prison and was working two jobs as a restaurant chef.
The Daily News ran no pictures of Murray or his family; it did, however, run this depiction of two women in their nightgowns, related to the story only by virtue of living near the incident and being, apparently, within range of a crime scene photographer.
The women, the caption notes, “declined to be identified.”
Follow on Twitter @DanielDenvir
The number of Pennsylvanians who might not have the photo identification necessary to vote this November has more than doubled: at least 1,636,168 registered voters, or 20 percent of Pennsylvania voters, may not have valid PennDOT-issued ID, according to new data obtained by City Paper. In Philadelphia, an enormous 437,237 people, or 43 percent of city voters, may not possess the valid PennDOT ID necessary to vote under the state's controversial new law.
“Those are the numbers we sent,” says Nick Winkler, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, when asked to confirm the data. “If you want to add them together, I think it's misleading.”
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