Apologies for a knee-jerk reaction

With the election behind us and a strong shift in dynamics at the Congressional level, I thought it might be a chance to take a breath. It really was a fascinating, albeit exhausting, mid-term election cycle.
At the outset, and I’ve been thinking about this for the past five days, I should apologize to the readership for a knee-jerk reaction I had to a U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson staffer keeping me from doing my job. I was told I couldn’t record at her rally in downtown Fort Madison Monday morning.
I tried to explain multiple times I was with Pen City Current, a local media outlet, and had been invited to the event. I even had a conversation with the event coordinator prior to my exchange with the staffer. Everything was good. When I went to go in as Hinson took the microphone, he stopped me and said I couldn’t record. I explained who I was and he still wouldn’t allow me to record. I pointed to the television cameras inside. “What do you think they are doing?” He said they were invited. I said I was invited – and then I just got frustrated and loud and didin’t want to disrupt the event and bristled away Journalists aren’t typically supposed to become part of the story.
I stormed off with a few parting words. One official inside stepped out to invite me back in, but I was already in a huff and had had enough. I snapped a photo of the Hinson campaign bus in front of the location from an intersection and was yelled at by an Iowa State Trooper for stopping in the intersection. I barked at him, too, and then realized I was getting out of hand and didn’t want to be that guy so I made myself drive home, instead of engaging him further.
But posting a rant using Pen City Current was a mistake and unfair to the readership. Sometimes our basic news instincts tell us to just report what happened and I did that out of frustration. That was sophomoric and shouldn’t have been done. Things happen, and my advice to people who are frustrated with systems is always be calm, professional, and work the system if you want accountability.
There was nothing for me to win there. The coverage was just giving the Hinson campaign some love for being in town that day. They made the stop, so they get the coverage. I wasn’t interested in a one-on-one because the Turek campaign hadn’t been around much so there was no fairness doctrine to placate. But I was going to quote a few of her remarks, get a photo, and get out.
The campaign called three times when I got home to apologize for the misunderstanding and offered a one-on-one with Hinson. I politely declined. They asked me to take down the post, but I refused. I did it. I’ll own it, but nothing was inaccurate, despite many on social media who had misinformation – and posted that on my post.
Nothing ever good comes from those kinds of posts from a reporter and I should’ve known better. There were other circumstances in play here, but the bottom line is that it’s not who I am and not what I do. It was just the second time I had been invited to a campaign event, and then been refused entry.
Sometimes trying to do the right thing ends up upside down. I honestly think some of the comments in the post were unfair. But the post itself can be considered unfair to Ashley Hinson as she had nothing to do with it. People pushed me for being upset, which is totally fair across the board. It was a lesson learned hard. I made a few phone calls on some of the comments and it became clear that the reasons kicked around about why “Chuck” wasn’t allowed in were not accurate. But I created the format and went home whining about how the events unfolded. Again, that’s not who I am and that’s not what we created Pen City Current to do. So I decided to just let it run its course and create some take-aways.
So please accept my apologies for the knee-jerk post that if had I just told myself to think twice before doing anything, most likely wouldn’t have happened. I apologized to the campaign on one of the follow-up calls, but didn’t take the post down because it wasn’t inaccurate, and I had to own up to it. These news outlet models with minimal staffs oftentimes miss the filtering that we got when an item had to go through a series of desks before it was published. It's the unfortunate byproduct of newsgathering today.
With all that being said, we produce a news product and we make the effort to put it in front of you. It’s totally appropriate for the readership to push back when they see something that doesn’t fit with what we do. Just maybe keep it focused on the issue at hand and we can debate that. Let’s not get out of bounds. I love a good debate on issues as much as anyone, but when it’s over, we still have to be people before party members.
Speaking of parties, we got to celebrate another state run by the Holy Trinity Catholic Crusaders this year. Their state semifinal exit against Ankeny Christian was the end to another year in the legacy of that program. And they did it running three, and sometimes four, freshmen through the rotation. With Holy Trinity's program led by Melissa Freesmeier, the song remains the same. And we love to hear it. Congrats ladies! – But that’s Beside the Point,.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.