The article below was published in Ulster County Press, July 2007
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Um, whose word was that again?

Dear Town of Rochester governing officials: 

Now that the truth about Porn-gate is finally out, here’s a friendly piece of advice. Before ever again questioning the integrity of the Ulster County Press, Blue Stone Press or any other Hudson Valley media outlet, edit yourself. 



Although we in journalism absolutely encourage transparency and hold ourselves up for scrutiny — after all, our word and our integrity is what our business is based on — you have a lot to do to rejoin the rest of the general public in holding us accountable. 

Why? 

Because you yourselves were unsuccessful in performing the kind of due diligence you not only expect from us, but would be screaming your heads off if we failed to do so. 

You didn’t check your sources. 

Forget about double-checking and triple-checking. You just didn’t check, period. 

And now you’ve lost your own credibility. You lost it when the sordid little details emerged in small claims court last week about the night you tried to shame a local woman. You remember that night in January, right? When a few of you put your little heads and small minds together and came up with that plan to keep Manuela Mihailescu off your Historic Preservation Commission?

Alex Miller, Pam Duke, Tony Spano, Francis Gray.
 SHAME ON YOU!

Let us refresh your, and the general public’s memory. To save time, here’s the Reader’s Digest version. 

Republican Mihailescu wants a seat on Historic Preservation Commission from a town board dominated by Democrats. 

You invite her back for a second “interview,” at which time you confront her with accusations that she runs a pornographic Web site. 

Mihailescu asks for proof and you show her photos from the site so graphic that Larry Flynt would blush. 

Mihailescu runs out, embarassed, and gets into an accident in the parking lot.



Problem: The site isn’t hers. 

Fast forward five months later to now. In small claims court, Mihailescu is suing the town for about a thousand bucks in damages — why it isn’t more we have no idea, but that’s the vindictive bone in us talking. 

Town Supervisor Pam Duke, town attorney Rod Futerfas and two town board members, Francis Gray and Ron Santosky, were called as witnesses. And finally, because they were compelled to do so by a judge and could no longer hide behind the erroneous “the interview was held in executive session” excuse, we got the story we were supposed to get five months ago. 



Apparently, “a reputable person” — your words, people, not ours — came to Gray and fellow board member Alex Miller with the information that Mihailescu was some sort of Web dominatrix. On the witness stand, Duke, Gray and Futerfas all said they did not personally duplicate the Web search for Mihailescu’s porn link because they trusted the source of the information. Futerfas testified that he asked Miller and Gray if the results were verifiable. 

”They said yes. I took their word on that,” Futerfas said. 



OK, let’s backtrack right there because that’s the important part. 

Nobody tried to verify what the “reputable person” told them. 

Everybody took the word of the “reputable person” because they trusted the source of the information. 

All we can say is… huh? 

The supervisor, board members and the attorney — all of whom are supposed to be the caretakers of town business — didn’t try to independently check the information from the “reputable person?”



Let’s say you were checking your e-mail or looking up scores on espn.com one night. You mean to tell us it didn’t dawn on one of you to think, “Hmmm. Maybe I should punch in that URL address that Mr. “Reputable Person” gave to us about Manuela and see if it’s right.” 

Wow. 

Well, with that kind of fact-checking, we’d like to sell the town some land we own. No need to check it out or anything. Trust us. Good piece of property. 

Oh, and Mr. Futerfas, if we ever get in trouble, we’d like you to represent us. We swear we didn’t do it. Just take our word for it and, you know, let’s leave it at that. 



Folks, please don’t call the offices of any local media outlet to complain about coverage. Your conduct in this episode means you have a long way to go to regain the same footing as the rest of the public. You don’t deserve to call in to say coverage was one-sided, or have your minions write letters to the editor bemoaning that “the whole story hasn’t been told.” The whole story wasn’t told because you never checked out these rumors, and then you tried to suppress what happened behind the false claim of executive session. 

This isn’t a victory for the media, mind you. This isn’t a case of being vindicated. This is about the truth finally coming out. 

Hold us to high standards, yes. That’s what we in the media want. 

But don’t hold us to a standard or an ideal that you yourselves don’t practice.