To the editor:
This letter is in response to Will Dowd’s March 28 piece titled, “Petition opposing MBTA zoning proposal surfaces.” This was published as a news article, not opinion. My expectation is simple: If an issue arises, our reporters have a responsibility to research the matter, interview the involved parties and present the whole to readers so they can make up their own minds. However, I guess I’m naïve these days to expect that our vaunted Fourth Estate will actually bridle their own ego in the name of a journalistic sense of duty.
Mr. Dowd’s blatant partisanship is evident in the very title. Sniffing that the petition opposing the mandate “surfaces” is a dismissive suggestion that opposition to the mandate somehow is like a fart bubbling to the surface of the bath water. In the week since the petition has been posted on Facebook, there are now 211 signatures. This is a genuine concern — not simply the lunatic fringe.
There was no attempt to interview John DiPiano, the drafter of the petition. There was no attempt by Mr. Dowd to leave his keyboard and interview townspeople opposed to the mandate. For that matter, there was no background about the mandate itself, the “housing crisis” it claims to address, or the economic impact that it will have on the town.
The entire piece merely gave Robert Schaeffner (chairman of the Planning Board) the stage to voice his umbrage at the public’s lack of gratitude for his hard work of bending the knee to lick Maura Healey’s boot.
Neither the fact that Schaeffner acquiesced to the governor’s office nor his expectation that the townspeople should show the same unquestioning fealty is surprising. However, Mr. Dowd’s refusal to question the state’s motives nor his failure to note the opposition claims that the mandate is inherently unconstitutional is. At the risk of being presumptuous, it is Dowd’s job to think, to question, to dig.
There is widespread protest throughout the 177 towns and cities affected by the governor’s capricious and onerous demands. Both the underlying rationale as well as the long-term impact remain shrouded from the public. The citizens should not be derided for having the temerity to object.
Walter Williams wrote the “Journalist’s Creed” in 1914. In it, he states that “the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are… trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.”
Will Dowd is no journalist. He’s used his platform to support the agenda of the powerful against the best interests of his own townspeople.
Jonathan Klopman
Peach Highlands
