This Isn't Spinal Tap, Norwich!

My dinky little blog -- its daily record is 45 visitors since it started keeping track in April -- can hardly complain about publicity in the Local Daily Newspaper (LDN). Indeed, N1303K.com hopes this is the first of many occasions when the insightful, incisive and articulate commentary that appears here attracts public attention.

But it must also be said that today's page one, above-the-fold news story about Bike to School Day in Norwich is off its derailleur.

It started when former selectboard member Gerard Chapdelaine made a post to the Norwich town listserve maintained by Valley Net in which he pointed out some of the contradictions inherent in the event. "I guess I'm just an old curmudgeon," he added, endearingly self-deprecating guy that he is.

Gerard was concerned about interrupting traffic during the busy morning commute, and he pointed out that shutting down Main Street and providing a police escort doesn't teach kids about how to bike to school safely.

Joyce Childs chimed in with a note of agreement. And I referred folks to a post I had made here, making points that were similar to Gerard's. Much as Gerard acknowledged his inner curmudgeon, I confessed to enjoying the event and declared that I would be joining the fun with my daughter, a first grader at Marion Cross School.

Somehow, these few blips of public discussion morphed into front-page newspaper controversy bearing the headline "Almost No Middle of the Road."

Susan Boutwell, the reporter who covered Bike to School Day and wrote the story, is an amiable, thoughtful person and I am always grateful when she seeks my perspective on issues she is covering. So I want to be respectful and constructive in my reaction. Here goes.

The LDN's story about Bike to School Day epitomizes the newspaper's morbid fascination with Norwich, its lust to spin the journalistic gold of controversy out of the straw of everyday discussion among neighbors in our town, and its inability to stay relevant -- like daily newspapers everywhere -- in the internet age.

"Bystanders Question Norwich's Bike Day," blared the sub-headline. Huh? Yours truly is a huge percentage of the quoted critics -- but as I made clear, and as Susan herself reported, I was not a bystander but an enthusiastic participant. Having been a fulltime reporter myself for nine years, I know how this happens: You write a reasonably nuanced story, the gist of which gets dumbed down and often distorted by the editors who write the headlines.

Been there, done that, gave it up for a profession with actual rules and accountability. And since I did that, the industry has been in an internet-induced death spiral. Newspapers like to claim this is a threat to democracy itself -- but it undermines this contention to be sure when what passes for newspaper news is a rehash of posts to list serves and blogs. That's especially so in light of the perennial complaint from newspapers that bloggers would have nothing without newspaper content to pilfer.

But I digress.

Unfortunately, this hyper-spiced flavor of newspaper coverage has a real effect in Norwich -- one that is decidedly negative. One has to assume that people who participate in the town list serve will be far less inclined to speak their minds now that they know for sure that even their most innocent and well-intentioned and, frankly, truly minor criticisms can and will be blown up into front-page controversy.

Much the same thing happened when our police chief, Doug Robinson, used the list serve to solicit public opinion about his plan to loan radar guns to concerned citizens (whom he had committed to train) to help them remind their neighbors of the strict speed limits in much of Norwich. It was a bad idea and I was among those who said so on the list serve. But, fundamentally, the whole episode was a stellar example of how to do things right in a democracy.

Chief Robinson had an idea, he floated it, he got a negative reaction, and he withdrew it. I note that in the process of taking those steps, Chief Robinson suggested that perhaps he had not been fully understood. I am worried that the newspaper's having turned this into front-page, above-the-fold controversy helped him decide not to explain himself further. That's a shame.

More generally, there was something ironic about the LDN's headline yesterday about there being "almost no middle of the road" in the bike-to-school discussion. That comports with the LDN's general conception of community life in Norwich, and it made for a cute visual pun (since the accompanying photo depicted kids on their bikes riding down the middle of Main Street behind a police car).

But it's wrong -- wrong in the sense of being inaccurate and wrong in the sense of being an indefensible effort to foment controversy where there can and should be consensus.

I personally sought to articulate a middle ground -- yes, let's have the event because it's fun and because the inconvenience, though real, is minor, but let's also not elide the tough policy questions about transportation and land use that we really need to confront if we want to make our community sustainable in the face of impending climate chaos. And as for Gerard Chapdelaine -- well, the guy practically personifies "middle of the road" and the LDN was terribly fond of criticizing him for that when he chaired the selectboard and supposedly vacillated between competing factions on that distinguished body.

Moreover, the LDN needs to use a less blunt instrument to view Norwich. The paper needs to draw meaningful distinctions between mild inconsequential disagreements -- some amiable griping about Bike to School, a trial balloon from the police chief being respectfully shot down -- and ones that make a difference.

In the latter category one might place the lawsuit that residents of Bragg Hill Road have pending against the town having to do with tax valuation of certain high-end real estate in Norwich. (I could go on about that but I will eschew further comment, given my own minor role in the town's valuation process as a member of the Board of Civil Authority. Suffice it to say that I agree with the empassioned encomium at town meeting from local attorney and school board member Geoff Vitt that, from the perspective of the town and its citizenry, this is a case that really, really should be settled.)

But I digress again. Sorry.

The editors of the Local Daily Newspaper are not the only observers of Norwich doings who are stuck in Spinal Tap mode. (Remember This is Spinal Tap? It's the Christopher Guest pseudo-documentary about a heavy metal band whose leader famously discussed the volume dial on his band's amps thusly: "You see, most blokes will be playing at 10. You’re on 10, all the way up, all the way up . . . Where can you go from there? Nowhere. What we do, is if we need that extra push over the cliff . . . Eleven. One louder.")

Similarly, this morning's edition of list serve posts included a rejoinder to the critics of Bike to School Day. The author proclaimed that she was "saddened, embarrassed, and flabbergast" about the criticism from folks like Gerard Chapdelaine and Joyce Childs.

"How anyone can criticize a town for gathering together to share a morning ride down Main Street, with wonderful smiles on everyone's face, is just beyond me. . . . [t]o suggest as adults, our own individual convenience is more important than allowing one road to be closed for all of 15 minutes for this wonderful event promoting healthy lifestyles, is just the silliest, saddest notion I have heard."

Heck, it wasn't even the silliest, saddest notion that appeared on page one, above the fold, in today's Local Daily Newspaper. That honor belongs to former Vice President Cheney, whose response to yesterday's articulate speech from President Obama about national security was to reprise his snarlish defense of torture and authoritarianism.

My point is that we need to cultivate some perspective and discernment when it comes to public discussion in a democracy. Because the inevitable consequence of treating every issue as if it's dialed up to 11 is that a lot of conversations will simply be shut right down to Zero.