On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, John Francis wrote:
> (The letter below was delivered Tuesday to Dennis Haarsager,
> general manager of NW Public Radio, and Dale Harrison, the News Director.
> A similar letter was has been sent to the Daily News, but has not yet
> appeared. I don't know if NWPR uses e-mail [one would think so, but the
> news staff's demonstrated ineptness makes you wonder], but assuming it does
> it wouldn't hurt if some of you reminded NWPR that you're station
> supporters and expect at least a little news initiative in return for that
> support.)
>
> Dear Dennis:
>
> I would like to complain in the strongest possible terms about
> Northwest Public Radio's non-coverage of the floods last week. I had NWPR
> on virtually all the time; I never heard a single story that indicated any
> NWPR staffer had even gathered a story over the phone from any flooded
> town, much less visited one. There were no reports from Colfax or Palouse
> when those towns were battling for their lives. Waitsburg was evacuated;
> no story. No interviews; no reports from anywhere. Nothing but lists of
> school and road closures and the occasional wire story.
> Why did we not hear a police chief or mayor in Palouse, Colfax,
> Dayton, or St. Maries telling us what their town's situation was, whether
> the river was still rising, how high the water was on the highway, etc? The
> Spokane TV stations recognized a big story: they set up satellite
> transmitters in BOTH Palouse and Colfax for live coverage -- no small
> effort. NWPR could have done the same coverage with a simple cell phone.
> And if it couldn't be bothered to send someone out it could at least have
> done some armchair coverage by calling townsfolk. NWPR even managed to
> avoid reporting Pullman's flooding though some staffers actually DROVE
> through it.
>
> This was the type of story where radio is particularly valuable.
> People needed to know what was going on: whether more volunteers were
> needed, whether the river upstream was still rising, how other towns were
> faring, etc.
> The floods covered NWPR's whole region, the region where thousands
> of people donate money to keep NWPR solvent. They deserve a hell of a lot
> better from NWPR than what they got last week.
> Every day we hear the slogan on NWPR "Covering the region with
> in-depth news. . ." This was the region's biggest news in decades, and
> NWPR didn't cover it "in depth," it scarcely covered it at all.
>
> John Francis (An angry supporter of NPR)
>
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