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Country Jam and babies
Local blogger John Linko didn’t much like our story today about the alarming number of pregnancies in the county after Country Jam.
Guess he would have preferred we spend more time singing the praises of the Nurse-Family Partnership, a program in the Mesa County Health Department that helps young families who might be struggling with pregnancy and parenthood. I’m sure that’s a very good program, and one that, after its Country Jam report to the Mesa County Commission Monday, stands to see its staff of nurses greatly increased. (Note to self: Do story when money for Nurse-Family Partnership, which is funded by money the state got from the tobacco settlement, runs out. When that happens will the program go away or will it continue to be funded by taxpayers?)
Other people saw the Country Jam story differently. While waiting, as a train sat motionless, more than 30 minutes on the north side of the railroad tracks coming back to my office on the south side after lunch, I checked my messages. One was from Wednesday columnist Dick Maynard, who said he had sent a replacement column for Wednesday.
“The Country Jam story this morning was just too rich,” he said, and he wanted to write about it right away. I recommend his column. Let’s just say his perspective is a little different from John Linko’s.
And when I finally did get back there was an e-mail from the Rocky Mountain News. Did we have any “Woodstock-type photos” of Country Jam. I wrote back and said we’d look and send one if we can find it. “Baby story?” I asked. Sure enough.
And the story was getting hit hard on GJSentinel.com today. It’s what we in this business call “a reader.”
Comments
By John Linko
July 9, 2008 3:17 AM | Link to this
Denny, I’m happy for you that your “reader” got picked up by the AP, and yes, Dick Maynard had a definite difference in perspective from mine in his column this morning.
Unfortunately, Dick’s column reinforced perhaps the biggest issue I have with your coverage; you guys aren’t taking this seriously, and seem to be trying to make light of the situation.
My take on this remains that any increase in pregnancy referrals that could be tied to Country Jam likely have alcohol as a contributing factor.
As the Family-Nurse Partnership provides service to low-income clients only, one could say that these pregnancies are part of the cost of Country Jam to Mesa County.
The Partnership also shows substantial decreases in cases of child abuse, domestic violence, arrests, and use of public assistance among its’ clients. This helps reduce any additional costs of these pregnancies to the county, and could serve as an offset to any taxpayer funding for the program after the tobacco settlement money runs out.
Unfortunately, these facts about the Partnership’s work were only reported by the other paper in town. They chose to attempt to inform and enlighten their readers.
You may have got your “reader”, with lots of traction on the web and a wire service pickup, but what did you accomplish with it? You became “Access Hollywood” while the other guys played “Frontline”.
Congratulations.