Zoo coverage illustrates Dispatch’s strengths
Since starting as a columnist almost five years ago, I promised myself that I’d toot the newspaper’s horn no more than twice a year.
Today’s the day for the first half of 2021.
I’m tempted to write about the inner workings of The Dispatch after reading what I think is a particularly solid edition. This, I can happily and truthfully report, happens far more than twice a year. But every so often I pick up a paper and think, “Damn, we’ve still got it.”
That happened again on Thursday. Two stories about the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium shared that day’s front page.
One reported the news that Jack Hanna, the 74-year-old director emeritus and public face of the zoo for more than 40 years, has been diagnosed with dementia.
The second was our continuing coverage of improper spending and other ethically dubious conduct by some of the zoo’s leadership.
That these two stories landed on the same front page underscored for me what we’re really good at: thorough and probing coverage of local events that matter.
The breaking news about Hanna, reported by Sheridan Hendrix, provided the needed context, spelling out what Hanna means to the zoo and what the zoo means to central Ohio.
If you read the story online you found even more context, including a must-see video shot by Doral Chenoweth, who spent time with Hanna as he walked and talked his way through the zoo he loves. The reactions of zoo
visitors they meet are priceless, as is the moment when Hanna feeds a giraffe a leaf of lettuce, directly from his mouth to the giraffe’s.
The remarks of the delighted zoogoers also reveal how much the place matters, making the other story all the more infuriating.
Our very first story about improprieties at the zoo ran in early March, a meticulously reported 3,000-word expose woven by Jennifer Smola and Alissa Widman Neese. “It’s reporting you won’t find elsewhere,” Editor Alan D. Miller wrote in a recent column.
Miller noted that when you turn a critical eye on an institution as beloved as the zoo, your reporting had better be rigorous and fair.
That first story was bombproof. Since then, Smola and Neese have kept up the pressure, leading to an internal investigation by the zoo, another by the Ohio Attorney General Office’s Charitable Law Section and the resignations of the zoo’s top two officials: President and CEO Tom Stalf and CFO Greg Bell.
How thorough is our zoo coverage? In the month between the first story of the zoo scandal and last week’s report on Hanna’s health, staff also reported on a zookeeper who was injured in a cheetah attack and on the death of Unga, the zoo’s renowned bonobo whose arrival in Columbus was delayed by an unplanned stop in Newfoundland following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Besides the two zoo stories that ran on Thursday’s front page, that day’s paper held updates on 2021 road construction projects in central Ohio, COVID-19 vaccinations, the reopening of the Ohiomeansjobs center and the case of Dr. William Husel, the former Mount Carmel Health doctor facing trial on 25 counts of murder.
There also was this gem of a lead sentence by sports columnist Rob Oller:
“Golf scrambles the brain into something resembling the egg salad sandwiches served at the Augusta National concession stands during the Masters. One day a 5-iron feels like a feather. The next day it feels like swinging a telephone pole.”
The newspaper business sometimes feels like that, too. Our staff is smaller. And try as we might to avoid them, we still make mistakes.
A daily newspaper remains a worthwhile if imperfect product. Thanks for reading us, flaws and all.
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While we’re on the topic of flaws, it’s been awhile since I addressed my chronic inability to stay on top of my emails. When I started this column, I pledged to answer every email from a reader. I continue to fail miserably at that goal, but I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, if you sent me something you really wanted me to see and fear I might have missed, you’re probably correct. Please don’t hesitate to prod me. tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker