Topic: DYLAN BELDEN
started by: MADDOG
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 20 2003,4:18 pm
Just got reply from Mr. Churchill, don't know exactly how to take it, though: From: "Dave Churchill" Date: 20 Aug 14:39 (PDT)
Subject: RE:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks for sharing this with me, Brian.
Posted by jimhanson on Aug. 20 2003,4:46 pm
Welcome to the non-cancellable, non-PC, privately operated BB!"Give me your tired (of the same old bad government), your wretched refuse (refusal to knuckle under), your oppressed (obsessive) minorities--your people yearning for FREE SPEECH!
Boone newspapers HAS THE RIGHT, AS AN INDEPENDENT PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, to cancel the Forum at any time--IT JUST WASN'T TOO SMART!
Coming as it did the day after one of its columnists took issue not only with a popular County Commissioner, but also insulted nearly half the County, gives the Tribune a one-two punch to its own head!
How do we operate here? Go to your favorite news source for news items, go to the Tribune for entertainment, and talk about them here. Continue to check alternate news sources--the Austin Forum, and freeborncounty.com. Have something juicy to post that DOESN'T appear in the local media? This is a good venue to get it out. This Forum will only work IF we have enough participation from our members.
It is important that we bring over more viewers and former Tribune members to this Forum. SPREAD THE WORD!
Posted by Ole1kanobe on Aug. 20 2003,5:19 pm
Hey-hey; ho-ho; Dylan Belden has got to go.Hey-hey....
Posted by hoosier on Aug. 20 2003,6:54 pm
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - George Bernard Shaw. I thought this quote fit this crowd to a T. LOL.
Posted by Ole1kanobe on Aug. 20 2003,7:46 pm
I, too, just got a reply from my email:Thanks for your message.
I am, via this response, forwarding your message to Christine Moser, publisher of the Albert Lea Tribune. Christine is ultimately responsible for the Tribune's news and opinion content and is interested in what you and other readers think.
If she has not already, I expect Christine will soon be in touch with you regarding your message.
Again, thanks.
David Churchill
Group President
Boone Newspapers, Inc.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 3:31 PM
Subject: Behling's article
Hello,
I am writing you from Glenville, MN in regards to the blatant blasting of a large percentage of Freeborn County citizens in Mr. Behling's most recent article in the Albert Lea Tribune.
I am surprised that you have let Mr. Belden continue his seemingly biased and slanted journalism techniques in the Tribune. I know that you have probably heard your fill of complaints on the subject, but Mr. Behling's article just crosses the line. Do you feel that it is in the best interest of your company to allow an editor to grind his axe through your publication? Mr. Belden has been called out multiple times by multiple people on his 'style' of printing, mainly on issues of printing half-truths and single sided stories, Only today have I noticed that an opposite view has been allowed to be printed in the Tribune about the insane chaos that has been going on here in Freeborn County, And Mr. Hanson had to keep on Mr. Belden's butt for quite a while just to get that accomplished.
This complaint is mainly about the article that Behling wrote. I am unaware if you have read this article yet or not, but it is completely inexcusable. Mr. Belden once posted to the forum something to the extent of "a good column writer writes articles that cause discussion", I would have to agree, but Behling's article went far beyond that, actually grouping people together and borderline denouncing them according to their elected County Board member. How ridiculous is that?!
I have seen a lot of questionable material published in the Tribune over the last couple of years, but this really takes the cake.
I would strongly suggest that you find a new editor for this paper, one that is not afraid to print the truth, whether good or bad toward people or elected officials. Frankly, I think you need someone with the qualities of Tim Sturrock. Although he is new to the paper, I can see a night and day difference between him and Mr. Belden. In my opinion, Mr. Belden belongs at the helm of this paper no more than he belongs at the helm of a nuclear reactor, and frankly I plan to do a lot of door-knocking at my friends and neighbor's houses not only in Glenville, but the rest of the part of the County That Mr. Behling verbally attacked in your paper and implore them to cancel any business dealings, whether they be advertising or subscriptions, that they may have with the Tribune until Mr. Belden is no longer working for the Tribune and Mr. Behling is no longer allowed to write for the Tribune.
I hope you will at least force Mr. Behling to issue a printed apology to all of the citizens of Freeborn County that he has wronged via you publication.
Posted by Mamma on Aug. 20 2003,9:55 pm
I sent an email to Boone Publications about a week ago or so complaining about the lack of fairness with their reporting. I got an answer from Boon and the Trib. Of course, it was a thank you for writing thing........
Posted by hoosier on Aug. 20 2003,10:46 pm
Mamma, send an email to Christine Moser, she is the publisher, she will send you her phone number and tell you to call her so you can discuss your concerns. At least thats what she has done for about 5 or 6 others I know.
Posted by jimhanson on Aug. 21 2003,10:37 am
Momma--just CALL the Tribune, tell the receptionist that you understand there will be meetings with the publisher to talk about the content of the newspaper, and ask for an appointment.Re-send to Boone Newspapers in Alabama, with your displeasure. E-mail to bni@boonenewspapers.com
The more, the merrier! ONE of us doesn't have much impact, but FILLING THE ROOM will!
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 21 2003,11:32 am
I've also emailed Sarah at KAAL, and I will contact Minnesota Public Radio. Dylan, are you out there yet. 
Glad to see Geo still had my avatar, kinda felt naked without it. 
Posted by hoosier on Aug. 21 2003,1:36 pm
I told her I couldnt meet with her at the Tribune, If I see Belden there I will rip his little head off. By the way, as of 1:30pm, Trib forum still down. At this point might not be such a good idea for him to start it again, none at all would look better than one not being used.
Posted by MADDOG on Aug. 30 2003,8:25 am
Any truth to the rumor I heard, that Belden is gone? For good or did the Tribune give him a few days off?
Posted by jimhanson on Aug. 30 2003,2:53 pm
I haven't seen any editorials with his name on them lately. He was in the building when we met with Christine. I heard the same rumor at City Hall, and called Christine about it. She said that he was taking a few days off, but she EXPECTED him back--she was not aware of a resignation.
Posted by hoosier on Aug. 30 2003,3:05 pm
Thats to bad if he is coming back, that would have been a giant step foward for the people of this county. But, if he stays, we will see how he does, if its the same old Tribune we all know what we have to do next.
Posted by minnow on Aug. 30 2003,3:23 pm
1. If we turn into a Albert Lea and Freeborn County news sight and provide high traffic and free classifieds, it'll eventually eat into Tribune circulation and profits that may well have been all made possible by one Dylan Belden!
Posted by hoosier on Aug. 30 2003,3:25 pm
O, you are so right Minnow.
Posted by MADDOG on Sep. 04 2003,5:10 pm
Belden's still at the paper. He received a flyer on this forum today. Also, an ad was placed in the business directory of the classified telling people of this forum. It's going to run for a whole month. 
Posted by MADDOG on Sep. 06 2003,9:44 am
Spoke to a para-educator this morning and one of her friends who is also a para has written letters to the editor that have gon unpublished! Go figure, huh? Anyway I gave her boonenewspaper's email address and encouraged her to write a letter to Dave Churchill at boone. Belden asks why he is restricting free speech at the paper.
Posted by rosebudinal on Sep. 07 2003,12:47 am
Seriously, not publishing a para's letter? That stinks!!! The one that Amy White wrote (which was great by the way) landed her in the District office, heard she had to sign some piece of paper.
Posted by Dustin Petersen on Sep. 07 2003,8:51 am
In Dylan's defense, when I worked at the Tribune, there were a number of reasons why we would sometimes not run letters to the editor. The most common was when the author did not include a phone number, or return address, or some other way for us to contact them to verify that the letter was actually from them. If we could not verify a letter, or if the author did not call back to confirm that the letter was from them, we would not run it.This policy started when someone wrote a letter over the Tribune's Web site "letter" feature, and signed someone else's name to it. It was just a normal, everyday letter, so we had no reason to believe that it was not from that author.
There were exceptions to this, of course. We would recognize the mailing label, handwriting, or e-mail address of some people who would frequently write in. In those cases, we would not call them back.
Most newspapers have this policy.
Posted by hoosier on Sep. 07 2003,9:01 am
Dustin, that is probably true, but there are a lot of people who claim to have sent a letter in, done everything that is asked, then the paper goes days without printing anything. I think what people are most upset about is the fact that the paper has letters to the editor on their desks, and still nothing is printed. But anyway, your ex boss, if he was your boss, has a lot to learn about being in the news business. If you would like to come and talk to some of us one day, we can show you somethings he has done that would make a normal person sick. And by the way Dylan, if you are reading this, we are still watching you, we can start our tactics all over again if you dont change the way you do business. You only have this one last chance, then we are going after your job and we wont stop until you are run out of town, I promise you that. If you dont believe me, just go back to your chicken crap way of reporting and see what happens.Have a nice day little Dylan,
Posted by sick of it on Sep. 07 2003,11:41 am
I wrote some letters to the editor for a while, but not any of them got printed. I got called about a few of them that I wrote by Dylan, he told me that he did not believe that what I was writing was true. Even when I proved it to him, my letters still did not get printed.After reading a lot of the messages on here I am glad to know I wasnt the only one that was being black balled for sending in letters that werent rosy and cheerful towards the town or its city council.
It makes me mad when they will print a person like Mr. Trow (a racist article in my mind) but will not print a letter to the editor that doesnt target people by race.
I have lost a lot of faith in the Tribune over the past five or ten years now, like a lot of these younger people have taken the paper away from us and decided on what we should know and what we shouldnt know.
Posted by minnow on Sep. 07 2003,12:05 pm
That's because Dylan is a fiscal socialist and a social conservative. Can it really get any worse than that?I, like Jesse Ventura and Arnold are the exact opposite.
Posted by hoosier on Sep. 07 2003,1:20 pm
Sick of it, you summed it up pretty well. Belden takes more time to see that letters to the editor are correct than he does to see that what his reporters write are correct. You are right, he decides if he thinks this is something the people can see. To me thats not his job, leave it to us to decide, just print all the facts, good, bad and ugly.
Posted by jimhanson on Sep. 07 2003,5:00 pm
Dylan "misplaced" my letter, and didn't run it because "it was no longer an issue". He did the same for Brian Bashan's letter--running it TWO WEEKS later, AFTER Gabrielson apologized to Belshan, and reimbursed him for the broken tape recorder. (Bashans found out the letter was going to be printed, and contacted Dylan at Noon, asking that the letter NOT be printed, since it was now out of date. Dylan responded with "I've got a deadline to meet--a 5 PM deadline--are you telling me that he couldn't pull the letter in 5 hours?)I know of two other people that had their letters "misplaced".ONE occurrence is HAPPENSTANCE, TWO times is COINCINDENCE, THREE TIMES IS ENEMY ACTION--and there IS NO PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR A FOURTH TIME.
Christine Moser--you are the Publisher of the newspaper--can you get some secretarial help for Dylan so he doesn't "misplace" any more letters?
Anybody else have a similar experience?
Posted by minnow on Sep. 07 2003,6:21 pm
Why can't Dylan admit he's biased in favor of the things he believes in? .....then spell out exactly why he believes what he does...
Posted by rosebudinal on Sep. 07 2003,8:59 pm
I recently wrote a letter to the editor and they called me to verify the letter before publishing it.(I had sent it via e-mail).
Posted by Dustin Petersen on Sep. 07 2003,11:40 pm
rosebudinal, I'm not sure if you are or are not in agreement with their contacting you, but it's for a good reason. Until they do contact you, they have no way of knowing if that letter is really from you or not.I didn't like that part of my job when I worked at the Tribune, but I understood why we had to do it. Even so, when I called people to ask if it was from them, they'd sometimes say "Well it had my name on it, didn't it?"
I can't imagine they'd be any happier if someone wrote a letter, signed their name to it, and we ran it WITHOUT making sure it was from them.
Posted by MADDOG on Sep. 08 2003,9:11 am
Dustin:| Quote |
| In Dylan's defense, when I worked at the Tribune, there were a number of reasons why we would sometimes not run letters to the editor. The most common was when the author did not include a phone number, or return address, or some other way for us to contact them to verify that the letter was actually from them. If we could not verify a letter, or if the author did not call back to confirm that the letter was from them, we would not run it. |
I understand the validity of confirming the author, but the last time Belden printed one of my letters, all I got was an email from him (that's how I submitted the letter) saying he was printing it.
How 'bout any para-educators, ever had any of YOUR letters go unpublished?
Posted by GEOKARJO on Sep. 08 2003,3:45 pm
Young Manager is correct here is an example The Mall sent out a questionaire on going smoke free one of the manager of a business here came to me asking for 14 copies of the questionaire and had alread checked smoke free and instructed each of her charges to sign it.I was so po'ed that I call the main owner and gave my notice.
Posted by MADDOG on Mar. 30 2004,9:27 am
Belden posted on a chat room recently and left this email address behind, yowza_bean@yahoo.com If anyone wants to know how he's doing.