Bruce Benidt
Jon Austin
tcarideo
Ellen Mrja
Mike KeliherMy first contact with the story of the TIZA charter school and questions about its religious activities was this headline on Strib columnist Katherine Kersten’s blog: “Should Katherine Kersten get the ax?“
Kersten wrote a column about the school: “Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) — named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain — is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights.” She calls into question religious activities at (and, she writes, endorsed and facilitated by) the school.
This is a problem, if true, because charter schools get public funding, and mixing any sort of god with public money is like mixing tequila with my stomach — you’re asking for trouble.
Then a state representative called Kersten a thug. An online petition was started, calling for Kersten to get the axe. The petition explains:
Kersten … committed journalistic malpractice. Kersten alleged that the school used public funds for religious practices. Her evidence: the word of one substitute teacher who spent a few hours in the school, made assumptions about what she saw, and never got the truth. Kersten failed to mention that her source was a Republican Party activist. More irresponsibly, Kersten used a tenuous and far-fetched guilt-by-association to suggest that these Minnesota educators were connected to terrorism in the Middle East.
But Kersten kept on truckin’. In her next column on the subject, she had an eyewitness.
Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.
Apparently, local ABC affiliate KSTP ran an appropriately-dramatic-for-TV story, on which MinnPost’s David Brauer shines some light. Brauer writes:
Contrary to KSTP’s script, [substitute teacher and Kersten source] Getz was clearly aware going in that the school was a cultural hot zone. Before teaching at TIZA, she showed her dad her assignments. He noticed TIZA on the list, and handed her Kersten’s original March 9 column, she says. The piece was filled with innuendo that the taxpayer-supported charter school was impermissibly teaching Islam. The school shared space with a mosque; its sponsor was linked to Hamas; the school’s cafeteria serves halal food.
…
The young teacher says she did experience genuine surprise after her day at TIZA. That’s because Getz wasn’t sure Kersten’s original piece was accurate — until she saw things for herself. “Columnists sometimes tell the news in a biased way, and I was surprised that [reports of impermissible religious teaching] were pretty much true,” Getz says.
Meanwhile, the state has investigated and released a report (that was quick!), and again, the enterprising Mr. Brauer explains: The state found that most of Kersten’s issues, at least as far as state law is concerned, were unfounded. The state did find two areas in which it now expects some adjustment or correction from TiZA.
Most major media outlets seem to have ignored this whole story, at least until the state issued it’s report. (They ignored it in terms of published stories, it seems, but Editor & Publisher reports that one PiPress reporter certainly noticed the story — he even signed the petition.) In the wake of the state’s report, local TV station KSTP went to the school to ask some questions. The cameraman got roughed up a bit:
Our photographer was examined by paramedics, who suffered minor shoulder and back injuries.
The grammarian in me can’t help but ask how in the world the paramedics suffered minor shoulder and back injuries. Must’ve been one hell of an examination. Good job, boys and girls.
Of course, the cameraman’s sacrifice was apparently all for naught, as the subsequently aired story discussed little more than the cameraman getting beat up. Good job, boys and girls.
So what’s the bottom line here? Well, first, if you rough up a TV news cameraman, you can rest assured that you’ve taken the reigns and effectively given the storyline a new focus. Perhaps more significantly, Kersten is columnist, not a reporter. A “news columnist” who lives outside the editorial pages, sure, but a columnist nonetheless.
I’m aware that “I’m a columnist” does not equal having a license to journalistically kill. And yes, a columnist for a major news outlet such as the Strib should be a responsible storyteller. At the same time, she has the same responsibility as a “regular reporter” to speak truth to power, to pick some fights and to examine when and where she sees something wrong.
In this case, was Kersten was she recklessly throwing out accusations or provocatively raising questions? The state’s report indicates she wasn’t entirely off base. Her source has been called into question — a one-time substitute teacher who has Republican-party connections. Brauer’s article about the teacher dampens any rage that might be found there, and I’m fairly certain many other, bigger stories often rely on source more specious than this.
In the wake of Kersten’s articles, TiZA was on the receiving end of harassing calls and e-mails and even death threats. But it’s not Kersten’s fault that some people are ignorant damn morons who think that’s some sort of acceptable behavior, and she can’t be expected to censor herself on behalf of these jackasses.
So to bring this back to where I started, is the Strib right to keep Kersten on the news pages?
Yes. Is Katherine Kersten the next coming of Woodstein? No, but damn it, she’s interesting to read, and I’m not convinced she’s done something wrong here.
Filed under: Journalism, Media | Tagged: charter schools, Katherine Kersten, Minnesota, Star Tribune, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, TIZA
Can anyone out there cite even ONE FACTUAL ERROR by Kersten or subsitute teacher Getz?
If the McCarthyite DFL legislator from Roseville has the guts to get factual, let her speak now.
P.S. Like all journalists in the Twin Cities, the whimp from the PiPress editorial page is blatently posturing himself for a DFL staff appointment because he knows both papers in town are facing insolvency.
Mustaffa, read Brauer’s piece from MinnPost that summarizes the state report findings: http://www.minnpost.com/davidbrauer/2008/05/19/1920/states_arabic-school_ruling_did_kerstens_claims_hold_up
It shows several instances in which some of Kersten’s claims were unfounded or where she overstated the restrictions of the relevant law. Are those factual errors? Innocent generalizations or oversimplifications? Jaundiced potshots designed to incite a riot? It’s hard to say, but ultimately, I’m pretty sure this petition is good for little more than making a point. She shouldn’t lose her job over this.
Katherine Kersten is a fine example of Voltaire’s line, “”I do not agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.” I can’t think of much Ms. Kersten and I agree on but I fully support her right to speak whatever silliness pops into her head and the Strib’s right to provide her a forum to disseminate it.
- Austin
The libertarian in me agrees with that, even though Voltaire never really said that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misquotations).
But is there a line somewhere that the Strib couldn’t or shouldn’t let Kersten cross? What if, rather than just *most*, all of her assertions were unfounded? What if, beyond being disagreeable, we could truly see an intent to incite fear or hatred? Maybe these columns prompted a hundred angry letters, but what if the Strib received a thousand?
When should they cut and run? That question can be asked and answered with a business perspective and a journalistic one.
If I ran the circus, I’d draw the lines based on my personal interpretation of “reckless” and “hateful” and “stupid” among other things. The Strib’s welcome to draw their lines wherever they please, just as I’m pleased to not read more than Ms. Kersten’s headlines on most days. If I disagreed strongly enough with where they draw the lines, I would make my disagreement known to their either through complaint or canceling my subscription. I suspect I’d miss them less than them me.
Or maybe I’d blog about it…we live in an amazing time when regular joes like you and me have access to basically the same audience as the New York Times, the Strib, Pravda and the People’s Daily; in this society at least, we’re all equally accessible via the Internet. There’s never been a more dramatic leveling of the means of communications than what we’ve witnessed in the last 15 years. The printing press, radio and television are minor by comparison.
Of course, you only exist on the Internet to the extent that you appear in various search engine results so one could correctly argue that the playing field hasn’t been truly leveled but the real significance of social networking – I think – is that it is circumventing at the grassroots level even that filter.
- Austin
“Allegations unfounded”?
These were first-hand observations by a substitute teacher. Are we supposed to believe that MDE was present when she observed these events?
In any case, according to Judge Brauer, roughly half the “allegations” (observations) in Kersten’s column are supported.
TIZA – until the the moment it got busted – was clearly a Muslim school operating on public tax dollars. MDE bureaucrats scurried around in record time to clean it up – at a time when the legislature was kicking around school funding.
I’m waiting for Channel 5 to hide a pinhole camera in one TIZA’s classrooms. Then we won’t be arguing whether a substitute teacher is a GOP operative.
If only Nick Coleman were held to your standards.
No, we are not supposed to believe the MDE was present and somehow knows more about what happened at TiZA than the substitute teacher. And that’s not what’s “unfounded.”
When Kersten claimed that [TiZA activity X] violated federal or state law, the state’s report said, “Actually, that’s not the case. That allegation, therefore, is unfounded.”
The state’s report doesn’t suggest that the teacher lied about seeing X; it merely clarifies for us that, despite Kersten’s allegation, X is not a violation of the law.
Your parting shot, by the way, seems to suggest that I’m some sort of myopic hack chopping at the knees of Kersten while letting Nick Coleman off the hook. I’m not sure if you assume I’m some left-wing Partisan Patsie, but let’s just clarify a few things:
1) I voted for George W. Bush. Twice. (Yeah, yeah…I know.)
2) In this post, I’m actually *supporting* Katherine Kersten.
3) If Nick Coleman would actually write about something interesting, I’d maybe read and write about his work, too. This isn’t a matter of selectively applying standards. This is a discussion of a situation involving Katherine Kersten.
I beg to differ. There are very much findings of illegality in MDE’s review of the TIZA school. They water it down in their summary:
“MDE has determined that, with regard to the areas reviewed, most of TIZA’s operations are in compliance with state and federal law.”
Worse yet, MDE is not in a position to refute or dispute the substitute teacher’s observations. Which to the rest of the world are credible and alarming.
In the absence of their own facts and credibility, people like Brauer and Greiling assign political partisan motives to a legitimately Constitutional issue.
Neither of these hacks holds a candle to Kersten or the analysts at Powerline. How inadequate they must feel.
Well done kristen keep on truckin!