Stephen Taufen, the most knowledgeable journalist writing about Alaska fishery issues, has posted an article at The Alaska Report on the March 20 fishery debate held at the ComFish Expo in Kodiak.The Associated Press, in a 340-word article about the debate which has been most the widely syndicated take on the event, barely scratched the surface of what went on during the two-hour event. My 650-word Progressive Alaska article from last weekend, gave the most points to Kodiak Representative Gabrielle LeDoux, the second most to former Anchorage State Representative Ethan Berkowitz.
Taufen's 1,670-word article is comprehensive, to say the least, and blasts a number of holes in my essay's premises. He noted that being in the audience, one got a different sense of Berkowitz's presence than came across from listening to the radio coverage on APRN:
"Berkowitz was very good at handling the short time frame for answers to complex issues, and stayed with the fire hard style on several cylinders throughout the night. He has to be given strong credit for his well-studied knowledge of fisheries issues and knowing what Kodiak wanted to hear. He strongly stated that he was fully against the privatization of fisheries off Alaska or anywhere else, and "the government should not rationalize boats out of the water" as he stood on the side of open competition. But I found Ethan's sparkings out of character. If he wants to win the election, knowledge alone won't do, debate watchers said he'll have to cut back on the salesmanship and hyperbole. However, those who only listened in on the radio may wholly disagree, as Berkowitz sounded strong."
Where I had been critical of Diane Benson's lack of preparation in a couple of areas, Taufen sees her tenacious attack on Don Young on the important issue of "transfer pricing" to have been the pivotal point in the debate, and the one which resonated most with the Kodiak fishermen in the audience:
"Benson, who is a member of an Alaskan native corporation, Sealaska - the largest private landowner in southeastern Alaska - clearly was no stranger to the multinational corporate exploitation of federal, state and tribal resources. She stated the problem too simply for most, because she does understand it. Others said she never explained transfer pricing. Not so, she got to the heart of it. And she asked a long-term congressman who could not deny he knows about it. Posing the question alone speaks to a commitment to deal with boat-rocking hard realities, and having the integrity to obligate oneself to doing something about it once in Congress. Those are leadership qualities."
Taufen further explains how Benson connected in the auditorium in ways that didn't come across over the radio:
"But (behold the underlying truth, again) Young faked understanding that important, multi-billion dollar question. Maybe Don Young was thinking of a hair-splitting answer to differentiate home countries from their multinational corporations who fully support their firms winning in fisheries trade by endorsing misconduct in their global transactions while in the host 'country' of Alaska, or ANC Sealaska.
"Young steered back toward the first question, already disallowed by the moderator, by saying,"I don't exactly know the question ... 'transferred to other countries'. But I will tell you, in this audience, that this [debate] is about fish, but I've heard a lot about Coconut Grove..." as he went on the defense over his actions regarding the Florida road. With a lie.
"The audience reacted and one identified person could be heard saying, "He didn't answer the question!" Someone softly shouted "What about transfer pricing?" Benson clarified to the moderator that "he did not answer the question about abusive transfer pricing, which does affect [Alaskan fisheries] because if you have packaging, for example that says on the packaging being imported to Japan...." Clearly, Benson understands many methods can be used to launder the profits through the products to deny Alaska true value for its seafood.
"Again the moderator cut in, saying the question was answered to the extent it was going to be answered. But Benson reiterated, "So, he's not going to answer the question about abusive transfer pricing and its effect on Alaska fisheries, and the losses we have as a result of it." Jake Metcalfe also asked the moderator if we could get a response to the question that was asked."Taufen's entire article is well worth a read, even if you're not very knowledgeable about the issues that were debated on the 20th.
10 comments:
Steve Taufen is not a journalist in any way shape or form. He's a columnist, which does not diminish the importance of his writing. There are no journalists at Alaska Report. They are all commentators and the proprietor is a news aggregator. Of course I use the modern accepted usage of journalist to mean reporter. Perhaps the antiquated use of one who keeps a journal may apply. Interesting that Steve is praising Benson's understanding of abusive transfer pricing, because moments after the forum ended he was not that impressed with her mentioning it.
Phillip - First, a kudo for airing out an article critical of your coverage. Well done, sir.
Our coastal commercial fishing neighbors are having a hell of a time of it. We need to understand commercial fishing issues, from all aspects.
The structure of the debate was poorly done, leaving this radio listener and many others annoyed with a poor production at KMXT. I could not hear the audience - only the loudest of clapping. The rules interfered with a fair exchange of information over the issues. The moderator was unnecesarily rude to a group of distinguished guest participants. Next time, 120 minutes of statewide radio air time ought to be treated with a better sense of respect and opportunity.
I appreciate Steve Taufen's clarifying comments, particularly regarding Diane Benson, transfer pricing, and the fishermens' reaction to the point. Thank you for printing it.
Once again Polar Bare is blind to the realities of the situation. See my last response to his inane ranting, where I school him on the nuances of intelligent discourse rather than the free-for-all he wanted. And instead of blaming the public radio station which simply carried the event, he should focus his comments toward the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce which put on the event. He's been schooled on this before, too, but appears to have the brains of a polar bear as well as the moniker of the same.
p.s. While that is Andy Lundquist in the photo, it is not the infamous "Lightbulb" Lundquist. He is instead known as "Kodiak's Benjamin Franklin."
Ishmael - good service organizations, that is, truly good service organizations, clearly understand customer feedback to be worth its weight in gold.
Phillip just provided a shining example of this approach in airing Mr. Taufen's comments.
KMXT is responsible for the content it permits on the air, and this time, they did a poor job. Next time, lets hope they do a better job. I would like to hear the candidates exchange views much more openly, without the format and the moderator in the way.
If you are offended by clearly stated listener feedback, well, thats too bad. Your reaction is your problem, not mine.
I agree with ish that the event wasn't something KMXT had any control over. Their coverage was good. I worked in public radio before ish was born, maybe even polarbear.
I disagree with ish that Taufen isn't a journalist. I guess the best way to explain that - because Taufen does have an agenda - is to ask anyone to go back through the archives of his writing about fisheries issues over the years, wherever they've been published.
They're very informative. If you take 20 articles by Taufen and put them next to 20 articles by Wes Loy and 20 articles by Lainne Welch, what you get is not much useful information from Loy, a lot of numbers and statistics from Welch, and a lot of useful information combined with context provided by Taufen.
What is more important to me about Taufen is that he has been predicting that the privatization of these public resources will ruin coastal communities. For years, he's been doing that, by providing information other journalists either failed to see, or decided not to write about.
By commenting on his revelations, he may be wandering outside the realm of reporting that keeps him in the strict "journalist" category, but by looking for inconvenient truths, he has avoided being a "journimalist."
Since Steve Taufen and Alaska Report didn't "Blast Progressive Alaska," I guess I will.
Either your ego is so big that you saw Taufen's piece as a blast on your piece, or you're just using sensational headlines to entice readers. Since I haven't noticed a giant ego before, I'm assuming it's the latter. Back off. You've got a good blog going, you don't need to hype it with misleading headlines.
"Taufen's entire article is well worth a read, even if you're not very knowledgeable about the issues that were debated on the 20th."
Seems to me if you aren't very knowledgable on these topics, that's all the more reason to read it. For someone like me who hasn't kept close tabs on this issue, it gives me some of the vocabulary I need to become more familiar with.
Ishmael, I'm guessing there's some history between you and PolarBear that caused you to react so strongly here and on your original post. When I first read your exchange with PB I was wondering about your strong response. My guess is that past history kept you from reading what he actually said with an objective eye. As an outsider, I thought, on the face of it, your response there and here were harsher than the words he used, called for. Now, if I actually knew PB, maybe I'd share your response. But at least in these exchanges I don't think he's being unreasonable.
steve,
A lot of good points. The headline was sensational, but apparently the snark got missed. It wasn't supposed to be intentionally misleading.
I thought about changing the line on who could benefit from reading Stephen's article.
This is a decent blog - thanks. And I keep telling myself "You need to be less partisan."
As for the "sensational," or driving readership up things, that's probably going to be a part of my approach to blogging. Sort of like my having to say "fuck" every once in a while. But it is less ego-driven than you seem to be concerned about. I think...
Philip:
1-Kudos on posting his article in the first place
2-I find you to be one of the least "meglomaniacal" bloggers I've run across. :D
3-Your comment at the end was totally appropriate. Generally, when I see "Alaska fishing industry" my eyes tend to glaze over, only because so many articles on the subject are geared towards folks with a long and technical history in the industry. Your encouragement to read it was (as Martha would say" "a good thing!"
Phil (and CD) Snark is hard to do with just the written word. Both yours (Phil) and mine. I certainly haven't seen any evidence of a big ego (just a healthy one) and I did say that and that I assumed it was for the sensational headline. So we don't really disagree on that. Nor on the fact that people should read the Taufen article.
Does the sensational title get more people to link to the Taufen piece? Maybe, but when they find out it didn't bash you, will they believe you next time?
I guess I bought into the boy who cried wolf story when I was little. :)
Steve,
You're maybe still missing the point. I'm not at all sure whether or not the headline got more people to click on Taufen's article. I didn't put it up there to do that.
I think that I'm a bit pissed that my advocacy of Diane Benson compared to my somewhat lesser advocacy of Ethan Berkowitz and Jake Metcalfe is taken for something other than what it is. I tried humor in the headline in an attempt to be self deprecating. It failed on you.
My sister goes to China. A lot. She tells me that when she gets really immersed in the culture, she comes back to the USA and has to rebuild her sense of what our humor is, because Chinese humor is so pervasive, funny and different from ours.
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