This is typical of what has been the public discourse on this subject. We have heard over and over again from people like Bob Bacon, major owner of the Gregg’s Restaurant chain, and Josh Miller, who is not only the owner of such local institutions as Trinity Brewhouse and Hot Club but is also a State Senator. These people always claim to have heard from many servers (in their employ) on the subject.

Having worked as a server in Providence for eight years leading up to the closure of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, I can say that nothing from the May 17 editorial rings true to my experience working in the service industry. Nor does it corelate to the overwhelming majority of the personal stories that I heard while campaigning for this law around Rhode Island this year. I have met no one who has ever recieved compensation from an employer to make up the difference between the $2.89 subminimum and the $9 minimum wage. I have, however, personally spoken with hundreds of servers who have worked whole shifts and even weeks without earning minimum wage.

The article claims that the proposed bill would cause these workers to be “without jobs”, because “Many restaurants operate on very thin margins, and many go out of business.” But to back up this frightening claim, the article’s author offers no statistics. According to the Restaurant Opportunity Center, a tiny national and local lobbying group operating on a shoestring budget with an office right on Broadway in Providence, all of the states that have eliminated the subminimum wage for their workers have seen an increase in business for their local restaurant industries.

The Providence Journal trots out the same tired argument that in order to create jobs, the jobs themselves must suffer. But what good does creating a job do when working that job full time is not enough to support yourself and your family? Rhode Island taxpayers will have to continue to foot the bill of over $600,000 in food stamps that servers require every month. Working without a living wage makes everyone but the job “creator” suffer. Had the editorial staff of the Providence Journal looked at this important economic issue from the point of the servers, they may have realized how neccessary this bill is for not only the actual servers and their families, but for everyone in this state. The most successful owners in Rhode Island’s heralded restaurant industry claim that they won’t be able to stay in business if they have to pay their workers fairly. I have been inside the industry long enough to know better.

Philip Terzian has been a Pulitzer Prize juror, a speechwriter for a former U.S. Secretary of State, and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Harper’s, and the American Spectator. According to his bio, he has “reported from a dozen foreign countries,” written a book called Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century, and held positions at a number of news organizations, including Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, and the Providence Journal, where he served as editorial pages editor.

It’s this sparkling resume that makes it so striking that Terzian would relish the closing of a community newspaper. He wasn’t just some anonymous Twitter troll chirping about how “amusing” and “deeply satistyfing” he found news of the Providence Phoenix‘s farewell, back in October. He’s the literary editor of the Weekly Standard.

Not just amusing, but deeply satisfying as well | #ProvidencePhoenix to publish last issue next week http://t.co/55PKUNxb96 via @wpri12

— Philip Terzian (@PhilipTerzian) October 9, 2014

Five months later, he’s apparently still giddy about Rhode Island losing its second most widely-circulated newspaper. This past Thursday, he tweeted:

Steady, comforting sound of crickets @provphoenix!

— PhilipTerzian (@PhilipTerzian) March 26, 2015

Now, longtime readers of the Phoenix‘s Philippe and Jorge will remember that Terzian occasionally appeared in the column.  In an item titled “Faux Phil’s Glass House” from 2002, for example, P&J wrote:

Your superior correspondents got a big kick out of perpetually arrogant “Faux Phil” Terzian’s regular editorial column of Wednesday, December 11. He excoriates the New York Times and executive editor Howell Raines, in particular, for the recent and (we agree) unseemly spiking of a couple of (subsequently published) sports page commentary columns about the exclusion of women members from the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.

Phil blows hard about the “wall of separation” between the editorial and news divisions of newspapers. His charge that Raines seemed to be breaching that wall of separation by exercising far too much influence in the editorial department (that he ran until last year) certainly has merit. But Phil’s condemnation of theTimes and its “act of stunning, self-defeating arrogance” loses a bit of its bite considering how the Urinal indulges in the same sort of behavior when supposedly independent writers at the O.P. stray from the views of the Big Boys upstairs.

Does Terzian’s #Twittersadism stem from a long-simmering grudge over one of these jabs? We can only speculate.

Back in October, I asked Terzian, via Twitter, why he was celebrating the fact that 14 people – including me, the Phoenix‘s final news editor – had just lost their job. He never responded, and blocked me from following him.

When I saw his most recent tweet, I tried to send him an email via his website, but I received an error message.

So, if anyone knows Mr. Terzian (who doesn’t seem to have a publicly available email address), please pass along the following note. I remain eager to hear his response.

Hi Philip,

I didn’t understand why you tweeted about how “amusing” and “deeply satisfying” you found the closing of the Providence Phoenix, back in October. And I don’t understand why you would still be publicly giddy about the paper’s death, with a tweet from earlier this week that reads, “Steady, comforting sound of crickets @provphoenix!”

Would you care to offer an explanation for either tweet, for a blog post I’m writing about them? To ask the question another way: why do you – a former Pulitzer juror, published author, and experienced journalist and editor – publicly celebrate the demise of a newspaper?

To be clear, I’m asking these questions with utter sincerity, and I’m happy to include any response you have in my post about your strange and upsetting tweets.

-Phil

Freelance Writer, Editor, and Teacher

Former News Editor, Providence Phoenix

https://www.facebook.com/phileilwriter

By the way, Terzian still contributes to the Providence Journal. As recently as December, the paper ran this op-ed about journalistic ethics.

How is this news?

These results are hardly surprising given the state of the economy and government. Based on these poll results, Center CEO Mike Stenhouse urges voters to approve a Con-Con to address these issues, but the poll does not demonstrate that voters favor a con-con as a remedy. In fact, it seems that the results of the poll that might deal with a con-con, Q.8-Q.18, have been withheld from the public. You can view the poll here, and see plainly that the questions jump from Q.7 to Q.19.

In other words, the information released is only what the Center wants you to see, not a real picture of likely voter attitudes.

Some results from Q.16 were released by the Center. These are statements from participants on why they favor holding a Con-Con, but question 15, which perhaps asks participants if they favor a Con-Con, is not included. There are 96 statements in support of a Con-Con listed, out of 516 participants interviewed and weighted for this poll. If this is everyone in favor of a Con-Con, that’s less than 20% support. Even if this is only half of the support the poll found, we’re still left with less than 40% favoring a Con-Con.

Had the poll indicated a majority of likely Rhode Island voters were in favor of a Con-Con, the Center would certainly have included this in the poll results they released. In the absence of the full poll results, we can only assume that the Center did not get the results they were looking for, and that GoLocal made a huge mistake in mischaracterizing the results.

Based on the information released by the Center so far, it’s obvious that Rhode Island voters see the Con-Con for what it is, a chance for special interests like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to alter the Rhode Island State Constitution in favor of the corporate interests they front for.

I’d been living in Providence for about a year and one of my first big assignments was to cover the 1990 governor’s race. Was I qualified, knowledgeable in the history and back rooms of Rhode Island’s politics? Nope. But I did the work, went to the press conferences, interviewed folks, and wrote my story. Then, Sunday morning, Charlie Bakst came out with the exact same story in the Providence Journal. Not word for word, of course, but the essential conclusions were the same. I spent the next 24 hours rewriting my story so that it said something completely different. Lesson 2: Journalism can dance very close to fiction; you pick your topic and your goal and write your story.

My favorite gig at the NewPaper was writing the “Urban Eye” column. Every week I wandered Rhode Island, looked for quirky things and wrote about them. I talked with Chris Morris at Antonelli’s Poultry, and Brandt Heckert at Pastiche. I talked with Bill Scambato about Yacht Club Soda, whose water comes from a mineral spring. Their factory store is conveniently located on Mineral Spring Ave. I met one of my best friends, Nora Forbes, who was the first person in Rhode Island to serve a frittata panini.

Decades later, I was walking around WaterPlace Park, when the woman I was seeing told me that she’d loved my stories, that she remembered them, and she’d been a big fan. I married her.

When The Phoenix first bought the NewPaper, they promised that they’d turn it into a paid publication, but they never did. Free is difficult to change. After a few years, I asked for a pay bump. Instead, my columns got cut. I left the NewPaper, and began writing fiction for real.

Lesson 3: Don’t ask for more money unless you’ve got leverage.

For a long number of years The Providence Phoenix offered an “alternative” view, but it had grown long in the tooth. Decades later, many of the writers were the same. Hardly cutting edge and alternative. There were long articles that questioned the establishment, but you still had to grab them at the liquor store or coffee shop. And then… The InterWeb. You know the rest of the story.

With the loss of The Providence Phoenix, and the dwindling of The Providence Journal, Rhode Island is being rapidly stripped of its public faces.

Yes, journalism exists online. There’s awesome writing here on RI Future. But nobody knows you’re reading it. Conversations about digital news aren’t invisible, but they’re often siloed until they break out into the physical world.

With a Luciferian ex-mayor in danger of victory, with a state government led by a “representative” who was never elected by the general population, Rhode Island needs public tangible voices that will break through the walls of lies and deception and misinformation.

The Providence Phoenix was a voice that worked to expose injustice. It showcased local and national music and theater and film. It will be missed.

Chafee agreed with me when I said he paper’s editorials can seem “purposefully incorrect” at times.

“Purposefully incorrect, I would agree with that,” he said.

Chafee said he complained to the publisher about the way he is portrayed in paper’s opinion page in 2011. “This irrational negatively is hurting Rhode Island,” he said he told the publisher a the time.

Chafee said his critique was  not meant for news reporters. But he did say “there’s a reflection down. I think the reporters pick up on a theme that comes from the upper floors.”

I also asked Chafee if RI Future was equally guilty of such yellow journalism (my word, not his)

You can listen to our full conversation here:

“It is incomprehensible to us that he has yet to be fired, and WPRO management should be ashamed that they employ such a person,” said Maureen Martin, chairwoman of For Our Daughters, the group leading the campaign against DePetro.

Martin and other activists organized the For Our Daughters group specifically to target DePetro. By highlighting his often obnoxious and insulting behavior, the group hopes WPRO will take him off the air.

According to a For Our Daughters press release: “The coalition will be distributing the video to WPRO management, Cumulus management, WPRO’s current and potential advertisers, and other state, elected, and business leaders. They also plan to widely distribute the video over YouTube and social media.”

The entire congressional delegation, nearly every statewide politician (with the very notable exception of Attorney General Peter Kilmartin) and more than 70 state legislators have refused to appear on his radio show. You can see the full list here. “We are very proud of the elected officials and candidates who are participating,” Martin said, “and this video will reassure them that they are doing the right thing by taking a strong stance against his vile brand of hatred.”

The boycott has noticeably crippled his show. (Last week he rebroadcast most of RI Future’s entire 25-minute with gubernatorial candidate Clay Pell, presumably because he is unable to book news makers himself. His addition to the interview was teasing the candidate for his effeminate voice and calling him “Clayboy” Pell.)

To date, WPRO has stood by DePetro. The new video, released yesterday, indicates that the For Our Daughters group is not going away for campaign season, a critical time for WPRO to book guests and advertisers.

“The boycotts will continue until John Depetro is off the air,” Martin said. “For anyone who thinks we are going away, we are not.”

Was DePetro’s contention that the Supreme Court decision was a victory of “people” over atheists (not “people”) a fair or complete assessment? Given DePetro’s penchant for playing rather loosely with reality, you probably know the answer. But there was an odious undercurrent to DePetro’s celebratory monologuing that morning, a strain of something far darker and more historically dangerous. As DePetro celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision as a victory for Christianity over atheism, he was also celebrating a victory of Christianity over Judaism.

Susan Galloway, who is named in the case, is Jewish, not an atheist. Linda Stephens, her co-plaintiff, is an atheist. The pair were represented not by the ACLU, but by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, among other Jewish organizations, filed amicus briefs. If the decision can be celebrated as a victory of “the people” over atheists, it can equally be celebrated as a victory of “the people” over Jews. Moreover, the Supreme Court split along religious lines, as all “five justices in the majority were Catholics, and three out of the four dissenters were Jewish.”

Imagine if DePetro had declared this ruling as a victory of Catholics over Jews. We would have immediately recognized such speech as hateful bigotry. Why is it different when he goes after atheists?

Cranston City Councillor Michael Farina spoke* to Gene Valicenti that morning, and DePetro used the clip endlessly on his show. Farina said, “We don’t typically try to push religion on anybody in the city. That doesn’t mean we can’t. This ruling, I think, will give us the ability, if we wanted to say a brief prayer, we could.”

Which prompted DePetro to say, “You would think that this idiot in Cranston would implement [prayer] right away, instead of cowering like the cowards they are, to the ACLU and the atheists” and “Cranston is the worst. First they fold to the ACLU and the atheists with the banner, and now they’re ‘Oh, we’re not pushing religion.’ No one is pushing religion.”

Try this experiment. Replace the word ‘atheists’ with ‘Jews.’ After all, a Jewish woman was at least 50% responsible for bringing this case, and many Jewish groups were involved.

“Cranston is the worst. First they fold to the ACLU and the Jews with the banner, and now they’re ‘Oh, we’re not pushing religion.’ No one is pushing religion.”

“You would think that this idiot in Cranston would implement it right away, instead of cowering like the cowards they are, to the ACLU and the Jews.”

Using the Greece v. Galloway decision as an opportunity to attack atheists reveals Depetro’s ugly bigotry. By neglecting the facts of the case, and pretending the case was brought entirely by atheists, DePetro omitted the fact that many religious minorities and including Jewish Americans, are equally marginalized by such prayers.

Ignoring the opinions and even the very existence of Jewish Americans involved in this court decision is tacit, if not overt antisemitism. I would be interested in hearing DePetro explain exactly how atheists are “mean spirited individuals” for bringing this lawsuit but Jews are not. I’d be interested in hearing John DePetro explain the opening words of his broadcast, “The people have won. The atheists have lost! The people have won. The atheists have lost!” in such a way as to dismiss the humanity of the atheist woman who brought the suit but not the humanity of the Jewish woman involved.

Atheists according to DePetro, are not people. Following DePetro’s logic, neither are Jews, or any other religious minority, for that matter. After a while, one wonders if there is any group, aside from rich, white, non-union Catholic males, that DePetro considers worthy of consideration and humanity.

John DePetro is contemptible.

You can listen to the entirety of his comments on Greece v. Galloway below.

*When will people learn that there is no difference between going on WPRO News and WPRO Talk? Did Cranston City Councillor Michael Farina know that his soundbite for the Gene Valicenti newscast was going to be played relentlessly by DePetro, or that DePetro would spend a half hour of showtime calling him an idiot? How often do I have to point this out?

Here are what we see as critical takeaways from her research: 

• Initially, after given a neutral profile of both a female candidate and male candidate, voters were more likely to say they would vote for the woman.
• Even mild sexist language has an impact on voters’ likelihood to vote for a female candidate and on how favorably they feel toward the woman seeking office.
• Neutral, positive, and negative descriptions of the female candidate’s appearance all had detrimental impacts on her candidacy.
• The impact of sexism can be diminished by a strong, immediate response from a female candidate or third party validator.

We can help combat the harmful effects of media sexism by speaking up and speaking out. Who’s we? All of us, voters, advocates, and the candidates themselves—we must speak up when we see sexism and redirect the conversation back to the issues.

What is sexist media? Here are a few examples from She Should Run:

Jean Stothert, Mayor of Omaha

As the only woman in the race, Stothert experienced severe sexism, most notably from a fellow City Council member.  The Councilman was photographed wearing a shirt that featured an illustration of Stothert in a bikini, on a stripper pole, with the words “Jean, quit stripping…off our tax dollars” and “sponsored by: suck my private sector.” Classy. She fought back, stating, “It’s not only demeaning to me, it’s demeaning to women.” She is now the first woman Mayor of Omaha and proof that addressing sexism head-on can turn out positive results.

Jenifer Rajkumar, 2013 Candidate for New York City Council

In an article critiquing Rajkumar’s nonprofit experience, the New York Post ran the headline, “This over-achieving beauty is running for City Council as head of non-profit that’s only skin deep.” This subtle form of sexism focuses on her appearance, specifically her “beauty,” which diminishes her credibility as a candidate by evoking unfavorable gender stereotypes instead of focusing on substantive issues. Even subtle forms of sexism must be addressed.

Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts

Since February 2012, Warren has been battling sexist coverage by the Boston Herald. Name It. Change It. declared, “No other mainstream media outlet has shown Warren such disrespect as a woman running for office. Whether the editorial page of this paper is mocking her age by calling her “granny” or belittling her by calling her Liz or Lizzie, it has become clear that The Boston Herald cannot stray from utilizing sexist vocabulary when writing about Elizabeth Warren even after being called out for it.”

For more examples of sexist media coverage check out NameItChangeIt.org, a nonpartisan joint project of the Women’s Media Center and She Should Run.

Looking Ahead

“One has to consider whether sexist media coverage contributes to the low participation of women in Rhode Island politics,” stated GoLocalProv reporter Kate Nagle at a recent forum on sexism and the media.

Women still only make up make 27 percent of the General Assembly, and few women have run and achieved statewide office. But the picture is not completely bleak. We are making strides. Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed broke the glass ceiling in 2008 when she became the first female Senate President in Rhode Island history. Several women have already thrown their hats into the ring for statewide office; Gina Raimondo is hoping to become Rhode Island’s first female Governor and Nellie Gorbea is seeking the office of Secretary of State.

There are also many women who will be seeking election and reelection in city council and school board races across the state as well as the General Assembly. Several female General Assembly members already know they will be facing challengers to win back their seats. Whether you’re undecided, opposed or supportive of these candidates it is on all of us to defend these women should issues of sexism arise. If they are brave enough to seek elected office, then we should be brave enough to speak up when they are unjustly attacked based on gender.

As the 2014 election cycle heats up in Rhode Island, it is important to remember that the media is a reflection of society. Collectively—with force—we can influence the conversation. Celinda’s research found that even mild forms of sexism can hurt female candidates. She also found that sexism hurts all candidates, not just the women they may be targeting. So it is on all of us, men and women, to be third party validators against sexism in the media and return the conversation to the issues. After all, isn’t our economic future and education system too important to be derailed by sexist bylines?

I hope you will join Women’s Fund of Rhode Island and the members of Rhode Island NOW in becoming third party validators, because the cost of being a bystander is just too high. Be sure to join the conversation on Twitter, check out @WomensFundRI @RhodeIsland_NOW #shesaidhesaidri. We look forward to engaging with you!

Amanda Clarke, the author of this post, is Chair of Education and Outreach for the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Justin Katz (in the first link above) uses the economic argument, that this is government intervening in the economy for personal reasons. He also sets up the idea that politicians (specifically Chafee in this instance) aren’t allowing their constituents to hear them.

Katz’s argument doesn’t hold up. Businesses can get hammered for the things they say or the things they support. If WPRO had a white supremacist or a communist host or someone who said things more repulsive than DePetro’s pronouncements, I doubt that Katz would be rushing to defend WPRO maintaining their business relationship with such a person. Even if they were a ratings bonanza. But because Katz’s views and DePetro’s are largely in line with one another, we’re being “pushe[d]… one step farther into the realm of Banana Republics and Lord of the Flies“.

Meanwhile, Marc Comtois posits on Twitter whether it’s more effective for politicians to boycott going on-air on WPRO or to go on and express their distaste and then sit through the interview.

Comtois has a way more interesting point. First, let’s talk about the politics of this. WPRO and its hosts tilt conservative. The constituencies that elect Democratic politicians tilt liberal. Therefore, there is very little for a Democratic politician to lose (politically) by refusing to going on-air on WPRO over misogynist comments made by WPRO’s most conservative host. Case in point, Gina Raimondo, whose fundraiser was the reason for the protest which led to DePetro making this remark, was one of the first politicians to join the boycott. Raimondo is one of DePetro’s favorite politicians (I suspect largely because DePetro hates unions, many unions dislike Raimondo, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend). Raimondo doesn’t appear see any problem with calling for the removal of possibly her biggest supporter in Rhode Island’s media landscape.

Notice I used the phrase “media landscape” there. That’s because WPRO is not the only radio station in town, much less the only media outlet in Rhode Island. If Rhode Islanders need to be informed as to what their politicians are doing, they can pick up a paper, turn on the T.V., check the Internet or turn the dial on their radio. It’s possible to cover virtually all of Rhode Island while missing one outlet (as disrespectful a practice as that might be).

The politicians may also have a bit of room here when dealing with WPRO. They’re not going on-air, but it’s unclear whether WPRO’s reporters will be able to get quotes. I’d bet they will. And they’ll still be able to attend news conferences and the like. But just because you have a media organization doesn’t mean you’re entitled to interviews from politicians (RI Future can attest to that).

The politicians also have a bit of leverage. It’s not as though WPRO is going to blackout coverage of the boycotting pols. After all, what Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras and Lincoln Chafee are doing is news that gets ratings. And for any blackout to be effective, it’d have to include other media organizations. Which means getting all those other news sources above to take a stand, and tacitly support the right to say misogynist things on air without consequence; while also losing the ability to gets views for their coverage of important political figures. Somehow, I don’t see this happening.

But finally, while denying WPRO’s talk-show hosts access to their lovely personalities is one thing, actually joining the boycott of the businesses that advertise on DePetro’s show is another. And it’s unlikely to me that we’ll see politicians doing that. There’s far more to lose by doing so.

UPDATE: While this post was was waiting for approval, Alan Fung announced he’s following suit. And so did the RI Republican Party. Oh and so is Ken Block.

One name I suggested was the people of Rhode Island. Maybe a “Make The Journal Your Own” campaign or something. The problem is, of course, that you still need some rich civic-minded millionaires. If the sticker price for The Journal is say, $30 million, then you need 30,000 people to average a payment of $1000. It’s not impossible, but it’s not likely.

This type of arrangement, where a group of people get together and buy a corporation is more typical of sports. In America, the most prominent example is the Green Bay Packers, who have been a nonprofit corporation since 1922 and have 5,014545 shares of stock owned by 364,114 stockholders, according to the team’s website. Their history of being owned by their supporters is a bit different, it took benevolent local businessmen to ensure that that would happen.

I certainly feel like news media is a more important investment than a football team, especially in Rhode Island. The value would be that the entirety of The Journal would be beholden to Rhode Islanders; instead of to some single entity, whether a faraway private corporation or an extremely rich owner and their family. They’d have a board of directors picked by the shareholders, and the corporation could even have a rule that no single person could own a controlling majority of the stocks.

Could you make money? That’s ultimately the question, and the argument might be that the concern for these new citizen-owners wouldn’t necessarily be a return on investment in financial terms, but rather in news terms. There’s no mistaking that The Journal has been gutted over the years; the physical paper’s shrunk as fewer and fewer journalists are working for it.

This isn’t a solution for news media though. One of the more interesting things said by the authors of Dollarocracy at a talk I attended earlier this year was that for too long we’ve thought of news media as a business because advertising has been investing in it. But as they went on to say, this wasn’t because advertising loves news, it’s because the eyeballs were there. In the modern era, where you can go to Google or Facebook and purchase a demographic (16- to 32-year-olds who love skateboarding-dogs), why bother making your demographic New York Times readers or Providence Journal readers?

The authors had an idea for a citizen voucher to fund news, based off of an idea that came out of the Center for Economic and Policy Work for a “Artistic Freedom Voucher” which was aimed at working around America’s restrictive copyright laws. This puts news outside of the profit-making scheme and into the publicly-financed realm. That might be an interesting policy decision for Rhode Island, but in the here and now, I don’t think it’s likely.

If The Journal was also printing money along with newspapers, I don’t think A. H. Belo would be selling it right now.