ROUNDUP BURIES 'BEST PAPER' DEFEAT

Front page rife with 

misleading journalism

By Jim Keyworth

Gazette Blog Editor 

If you read the front page of the Payson Roundup yesterday (Tuesday, Oct. 2), you experienced two instances of irresponsible journalism.

The first and most egregious was the Roundup story on the Arizona Newspapers Association (ANA) Awards competition in which the Roundup FAILED TO WIN BEST NON-DAILY NEWSPAPER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY, MANY YEARS (we were winning that award every year way back when I was working there).

Actually they did tell you in the very last paragraph of the story that Arizona Capital Times won the award this year, but it was BURIED VERY, VERY DEEP on the continuation page.  At the beginning of the article, the Roundup blew its horn (out of all proportion with reality) about some minor awards it did win, making it sound like they swept the competition.

If one were practicing responsible journalism, one would admit up front, in the lead paragraph, that a long streak had come to an end.  Instead, the Roundup tried to mislead its readers into thinking all was well on the awards front.  It’s a little reminiscent of how the Roundup buried the story about Editor Pete Aleshire spending a night in jail.

The other example of dishonest journalism in Tuesday's paper – giving front page coverage to a story told by Rep. Paul Gosar about the Libyan ambassador being tortured and sodomized before he was killed that is total BS.  If the Roundup didn’t know that, it should have.  That kind of political crap has no place in a newspaper that claims to be fair, much less on the front page.

But maybe this front page tells us why the Roundup is no longer the best little non-daily in the state.  Maybe its irresponsible, misleading, sugarcoated, pandering journalism is finally catching up with it.  What goes around…

The prestigious Arizona Press Club awards are the ones that matter, and the Roundup has been pretty much a no-show at that competition the last few years.