There was a long piece in the paper across town this weekend -- plus a column and an editorial -- excoriating the city of Winona for how it has presented information concerning the closure of the Interstate Bridge and subsequent developments.
In short, they complain they've been left out of the loop, nobody's been telling them anything and they don't like it. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence in the depths of City Hall.
Sorry, folks, that isn't quite the case.
At the Daily news, we got first notice of impending problems with the bridge about 7 p.m. Tuesday in a fax from MnDoT (not, as was claimed by Ms. Cynthya Porter, in an email, phone call or secretive phone call from city staff on a cloak and dagger mission). The fax announced an 8 p.m. briefing. Far from a secret conclave, except for the agrieved paper across town, all local media outlets plus some area TV stations were represented, along with members of the city council, county board, state legislature, city staff and a number of citizens who'd gotten wind that something was up. The session went on until no one had any more questions. The meeting set for Wednesday morning was announced, reannounced and announced again.
Just for the record, news of the Tuesday night meeting was posted on winonadailynews.com within minutes of our receiving the fax. A capsule account of the briefing, including an announcement of the Wednesday morning meeting was posted shortly after the session adjourned. That information was available in the newspaper and online.
Hardly a secret session.
All the unhappy folks at the paper across town needed to do is pick up their mail or read the daily newspaper and they'd have known all about what they insist was being kept from them. They might even have made it to that meeting. Our reporters were there -- we had an update on it online just after it wrapped up.
Ms. Porter goes on to claim that "In Thursday morning's edition, the Minneapolis Star Tribune scooped all local media with announcement of a ferry system." Apparently, neither Ms. Porter nor her editors read the banner headline and sub head over Winona Daily News reporter Mark Sommerhauser's Thursday morning story -- "Waiting for answers: City reels from bridge closure, plans shuttle system by Monday." Scooped? Hardly.
Ms. Porter might not have had a clue, but nobody beat the Daily News to the story -- and I'm not about to let the paper across town claim otherwise.
Now I don't care if the paper across town wants to whine and make excuses for itself, but I do mind when Ms. Porter claims the city is "under fire" from news organizations "who have been excluded from the information circle." It has been our experience that during these difficult days Mayor Miller, city staff, council members, area legislators and state officials have been open and fortcoming with information, sharing what they know when they know it and frankly admitting when no information is available.
All a reporter has to do is show up and ask.
Mark, Kevin, Amber, Nolan, Kari, Matt, Fred and Sarah have been out there showing up, asking questions, getting answers. There's no magic information circle to be let in on -- just hard work, tenacity and good, solid reporting.
That's how they got the story, Ms. Porter. Any perhaps, why you didn't.
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