North Country Public Radio Joins In Active Suppression and Distortion of Potsdam Health Care Zone Story
Please note: Various versions exist of the audio for the story referenced herein. We are working off the MP3 audio as posted before 8 AM on the NCPR.org website, and the on-air broadcast shortly after 8 AM.

Jonathan Brown and his news editor Martha Foley at North Country Public radio have joined the Johnson Newspaper Corporation in suppressing and distorting the truth about the Potsdam Hospital Zone. (See "Johnson Newspaper Corporation")

Despite 45 minutes on one-on-one taped interview with Brown, multiple press releases to Brown and Foley, and the repeated suggestion to both that they make sure to consult the highly documented PotsdamSmartGrowth.org website, Brown and Foley ran a several-minutes audio story on June 2, 2009 that utterly missed the story and - as we feared - left listeners completely deluded and misled.

The story as broadcast shortly after 8 AM on Tuesday, June 2, 2009, carried three officials and a "Rich Brummel, local activist". No mention was made of Potsdam Smart Growth or the incredibly rich website PotsdamSmartGrowht.org. The report said nothing of the village process to date or in the future for reviewing or approving the zone. No information about public participation, no information on hearings already held or in the future, and meetings held or time-frames involved was reported in the several-minutes-long report.

There was no information about what a concerned citizen could do to find information or get involved. And there was certainly no information about the fiasco of environmental review that caused the village to temporarily suspend consideration of the zone two weeks ago.

In other words the story was a pure whitewash.

The story that was supposed to be all about -- as Brown told Brummel -- what would happen to the neighborhood of Waverly Street where the 15-acre hospital Zoning and Construction proposal (Local Law 4 of 2009 of Village of Potsdam) was on the brink of approval turned into a muddled reassurance from one trustee that nothing bad would really happen, and a big plug from hospital CEO David Acker that the hospital was busy and thriving.

To be honest, when Brown called us do an interview, we never expected the "Blue Grass - Soul Jive" voice of pseudo-liberal, pseudo-sophisticated pretentiousness in the North Country to create good journalism in this story -- any more than they did as we ignored them for years otherwise, preferring the nearby Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) by miles.

But the level of deliberate distortion - and the unknown pressure that caused it to happen during a mysterious 5-day delay in broadcast - makes the story truly interesting and tragic-comic.

We call on Brown and his station to preserve all tapes made of the interview with Brummel for review by and attorney appointed by the NCPR board and by National Public Radio ethicists, whom we are contacting in Washington today.

Brown took what he said would be a four-minute interview with Potsdam Smart Growth organize Richard Brummel (see photos of interview May 23, 2009), acceded in the determination it was "too hot to handle," allowed it to be eviscerated it and diluted it with "refutations" that Brummel was never given the opportunity to respond to - despite Brummel's repeated request to do so at least 24 hours prior to airing to both Brown and news editor Martha Foley.

Brummel knew something was wrong when the interview, rushed and cajoled by Brown at 10:30 AM on Saturday morning, May 23, for a quick deadline, inexplicably and without any notice did not run as scheduled (as "budgeted" in Brown's words) the next Tuesday morning, May 26.

Brown seemed not to know the story was being pulled, even at the time of Brummel's follow-up contact with Brown -- as requested by Brown -- on Monday May 25 at 3 PM. (It was a memorable call made from an Indian Lake Stewart's payphone due to lack of cell coverage in the Adirondacks.)

Since he was out of town, Brummel did not know the story was "delayed" until he retuned Sunday, May 31 and could not find it on the NCPR.org website. He called NCPR Sunday morning and asked that messages be left at the homes of Brown and editor Martha Foley to call him as soon as possible, but neither person called, that day or later.

Monday morning Brummel called Foley and he had a long and heated discussion demanding the opportunity to correct prior to broadcast any distortions introduced into the story by "other voices" which Martha said were added for "perspective" but Martha refused and eventually terminated a twenty-minute long conversation, saying she had a meeting to attend.

Brummel spoke to Brown Monday afternoon and repeated his request to respond to any statements but was again refused.

Brown assured Brummel that any statements given him by others would have been followed up "the same as I did with you". In fact there were no follow-ups to dubious assertions introduced by Trustee Steve Yugartis or CEO David Acker - just silent smiling adoration from Brown over the radio.

As it turned out, almost all of Brummel's statements were removed from the interview. Discussions of the zoning language as written for five-story buildings, 24-hour activity in large regional cancer and trauma centers described by hospital leaders, all mention of the disastrously flawed and ignored environmental review fiasco the village was forced to redo, the failures of the other media to cover the story accurately - all was omitted by Brown and Foley.

Factual information about the two-story office building zoning on Waverly Street - which Brummel read from paper to Brown as they walked was seemingly refuted by Steve Yugartis and its impact completely minimized.

No other neighbors or environmentalists were added to the story - only Yugartis, the hospital president, and village trustee Ruth Garner.

Finally, in the brief second clip of Brummel's voice allowed into the "interview" Brown cheerfully allowed one alternative Zone location described by Brummel, on the old Clarkson University campus downtown - a plan given some credit in a still-secret meeting scheduled between CEO Acker and Clarkson president Tony Collins last January and repeatedly reported by now -- to become a truncated caricature that served to discredit Brummel.

A final point: Brown allowed the impression to exist that Brummel opposed hospital expansion - whereas Brummel told him and has repeated in print and verbally that the hospital should be permitted expand anywhere it must do so -- but only in an environmentally-suboptimal location when superior ones are ruled out.

So far we have seen larger benefits in expansion on the former Clarkson campus and now on the emptying Hackett's Plaza as possible alternatives to the Waverly-Leroy Street location.

By Richard Brummel. organizer, Potsdam Smart Growth, PotsdamSmartGrowth.org, email: rb.1006@yahoo.com, prepared 6/2/09