Newspapers Deliver

Several days ago, in two area newspapers, I read about how the Somerset County Park Commission still seems to be having difficulty in making fundamental changes to its procurement practices. That underscored to me how we rely almost exclusively on the accurate reporting of two journalists, Martin Bricketto and Joe Tyrrell, to stay on top of what’s going on with the behavior of the commission and with the oversight responsibilities of the Somerset County Freeholders.

When the Wolff and Samson report was released to the public last year, a furor broke out over the policies and practices of the park commission. I attended several public meetings and heard supporters of the status quo walk up to the mike, talk about how things weren’t that bad at the commission and that “media frenzy” was largely to blame for stirring up the pot. The message seemed to be that if only the press would go away, the bad news would go away.

Well, when a tree falls in the forest, it still makes a sound, even though no one is there to hear it. It just so happens, in this case, that when the trees of the park commission scandal began toppling over, somebody was there to listen to the crackling of the branches. Some of those who heard the noise, like it or not, were reporters sitting in public meetings of the freeholders and of the park commission, taking notes, asking questions, digging up facts, and bringing that information back to newspaper and Internet readers.

There was no media frenzy. I read all of the columns and attended many of the same meetings at which reporters were present. I don’t recall them writing about anything that did not actually happen, or that the public did not deserve to know.