“It’s not a story,” said Dave Lyghtle when I told him I was working on an article about his employment by the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) at the OID Board meeting last week.
Lyghtle is Public Relations Director for Marcia Hermann Design of Modesto. According to the agency’s website, Lyghtle believes, “an effective public relations strategy is a valuable component of building and maintaining any organization’s brand and reputation.”
In November, the OID Board of Directors voted to renew OID’s contract with Marcia Hermann Design in part because, “Due to the resignation of the Oakdale Leader’s Reporter [sic] for the District, Marcia Herrmann Design has been filling this roll [sic] since June. Marcia Herrmann Design has been able to provide a more positive, fair and accurate media coverage of the District.”
Marcia Hermann Design receives $165 an hour from the OID. Much of the “more positive, fair and accurate media coverage” of the OID appears without attribution in the Oakdale Leader. In essence, the Oakdale Leader prints press releases written by Dave Lyghtle without a byline or disclaimer, as though the reports were written by the Oakdale Leader’s staff.
Compare, for example, the December 10 report of an OID Board Meeting with Lyghtle’s press release. The December 10 edition of the Oakdale Leader features word-for-word replication of the December 9 OID press release with some cuts. There is no byline or attribution. While this practice is increasingly common, it’s a clear violation of the journalistic code of ethics .
What makes this case worse is that the press release was written not by OID staff but by a public relations person whose agency is paid $165 an hour to burnish OID’s image and reputation.
That’s not all. Lyghtle also comments on local news stories about OID and sometimes uses a pseudonym. In neither case does he identify himself as a highly paid public relations person hired by the Oakdale Irrigation District.
When he commented on a story in The Valley Citizen, he used the name “Paul Harvey.” I recognized Lyghtle’s style and called him out.
Lyghtle claims both the Modesto Irrigation District and Turlock Irrigation District employ public relations agencies. We’re going to check that out. We’re also going to ask whether the Modesto Bee or Turlock Journal prints press releases generated by public relations persons without attribution.
In the meantime, we have calls in to Marg Jackson of the Oakdale Leader, and Frank Clark, who is on the OID Board of Directors. We would like to know whether Ms. Jackson and Mr. Clark would go on the record as approving of publishing press releases generated by public relations agencies without attribution. Thus far, neither Mr. Clark nor Ms. Jackson has returned our calls.
The question is especially pertinent to Mr. Clark and other members of the OID Board of Directors because paid public relations for the OID amounts to paid political advertising for incumbent directors. Suffice to say, Mr. Lyghtle would not continue to be employed by OID if he were critical of OID policy or directors.
In recent years, the Oakdale Irrigation District has engaged in the highly controversial practice of selling water outside the region. We believe local citizens who follow water issues should know the OID is paying a public relations agency $165 an hour to generate “positive” media coverage. We also believe Valley citizens should know when local media publish public relations press releases without attribution.
Dave Lyghtle says, “It’s not a story.” I told him we’d let our readers decide.
Way to take OID to the mat, Eric. Good investigative journalism. These irrigation districts in this area are used to having their way. They need to realize the times they are a changin.
Good report. Stay on top of the water districts and in particular their use of PR hacks/flacks– why should governmental agencies even if “only” special districts (known in Sacto as the Fourth Branch of Government) use money for political publicity which should otherwise be used to service the general public? This drought may finally highlight the contradictions in water management in the SJ Valley, and force a broader look at ag and water in our region, as well as the state itself.
To that end, I suggest that Valley Citizen publish an electronic compilation of all its water and agriculture articles in an e-book to give us a good source on the many issues without having to work through dozens of downloads and prints. The articles could be printed in chronological order and need not even be updated, unless new columns are needed on any specific issue. Since it would be available by download, users like myself would pay a modest fee, which might be used to pay an intern to do the computer work.
The Valley Citizen provides an invaluable service in a region where it is sometimes hard to get some points of view heard and debated. This compilation would be a major tool in keeping the public focused on water reality.
Bruce E. Jones
Modeso