09/05/2023
Jimmy Santos- OPINION: Middleborough News - A force for good, or townie grievances masquerading as news?
September 3, 2023
(8 calendar days and 5 business days until the cultural council member implicated in the source “story” is required to respond; the source story was published 9 calendar days and 5 business days prior to the required response period.)
Are Alice Elwell and the Middleborough “News” a positive force for digging up news and distributing it to the people? Or is it a way for her personal friends to paint their enemies in an unfair, negative light?
Her most recent story, “Following The Money” made 2 major accusations:
“[M]ore than 30-percent of the grant monies going out of town programing?”
Besides the obvious spelling and grammar issues, the claim would have the reader believe that the Middleboro Cultural Committee’s grant money was spent on out of town programming.
For example:
Claim: 30% of the grants given via the MCC were for events happening out of Middleboro
Reality: 30% of the grants given were for outside groups (that is, programs whose business address lie outside the boundaries of our town) to conduct programming *for the benefit of Middleboro.*
Claim: Sascha Mules-O’Roak did not quickly comply with her request
Reality: The state requires 10 business days for a response, and as of Elwells article, 5 business days had elapsed.
After reportedly being turned down for a job by Nemasket News (the town’s brick-and-mortar and in-print newspaper), Ms. Elwell began publishing feverishly about anything and everything to social media- seldom sparing nearly enough time between articles to type them, much less consider the pesky constraints of researching the subject area, confirming the facts, and (heaven forbid) proofing her writing.
In this case, a small amount of research that any unbiased reporter would have considered a prerequisite, would have shown that ALL of the projects that were awarded funding from the Middleboro Cultural Council were to benefit Middleboro residents, and yes- about a third of those awards paid external groups to provide said programming to Middleboro residents.
The accusation that the money would not benefit Middleboro residents was quickly and easily verifiable as being false, had an observant journalist been bothered to watch the 2023 award presentation, which is available on MCCAM’s public access, on-demand website.
This basic tenet of journalistic integrity was not conducted by Ms. Elwell, who has entertained the likes of guest-writer Teresa Farley, former vocal opponent and detractor of Mr. Nicholas O’Roak, husband of Sascha Mules-O’Roak. Good journalists will understand that bias is hard to earn, but priceless- and actions speak louder than words.
Finally, to address part 2 of the accusation in Ms. Elwells article, as of the day of this article, Ms. Mules-O’Roak still has 8 calendar days and 5 business days to respond to Ms. Elwell.
We are all busy. We all have just mere minutes a day to consider local issues above and beyond our family, lives, and careers. There is a sacred trust between those who would bill themselves as reporters and the citizens that they serve to give us concise and accurate news.
Here at the Middleborough Times, we ask ourselves first and foremost, “Are we telling the truth, and are we properly serving the citizens of Middleboro with value-added news and analysis?”
Do you have time to view an inflammatory news article, consider the writer’s biases, investigate the accuracy of the information presented, and determine if we trust the article in question?
We try to find the time as often as we can, but we are in this industry… we’re guessing you have better things to do.
We at Middleborough Times give this news article by Alice Elwell a 3/10, “Mostly Misleading.” While there was some helpful information with regard to her listing of awarded grants, the article was purposefully written to mislead the audience away from the real facts, possibly biased by a documented associate of Ms. Elwell with an axe to grind.
While we sadly don’t have enough time to dig into the motives, biases, and accuracy of each news story that comes across our feed, please let this reporting of inaccuracies save you a little time when you next read a story from Alice Elwell.
