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Vol. I
No. 9 Jan Johnson Revealed Vagabond Journalist
Two straws instead of one are perhaps to blame, first and foremost being the sheer volume of drivel poured atop the heads of many local business owners by Warford as to my performance and integrity (in ignorance of the law against slandering a former employee in conversations with prospective employers and advertisers). The lack of veracity to Warford’s tall tales are laid bare by the simple fact that the Humboldt Advocate has yet to match with a clutch of lesser successors in the news reporting department the output I managed single-handedly. As to integrity, I might cite the resounding number of corrections necessitated by over 100,000 words of my reporting – two – one of which was later laid bare as a non-correction of something which was true in the first place, that being developer Don Davenport’s real estate interests near the old Fireside Inn (the other I freely admit as an early goof, wherein Paul Pitino was a former millwright at Masonite Inc., not a former mason of the deist temple variety…and to Pitino’s credit, he took it in stride). While Warford’s declining grip on his senses and on the sensibilities of the advertisers he spends so much of his time sucking up to becomes clear to many of the businesspeople he deludes himself as to his fooling of (as several of them have told me), what really galled me was his continuing assault not just on his former employee but upon his former employers as well. Apparently Journal publisher Judy Hodgson is also fair game for personal attacks merely because she no longer wished to employ Warford. In his trumped up and self-inflating editorial “Local Media, Money and Power,” Warford includes the false allegation that she purchased the Journal from Robin Arkley, Sr. according to “an anonymous inside source.” Given the revulsion the name of Shawn Warford elicits from every Journal staffer anyone from our team has encountered, this claim appears even more dubious. In addition to Arkley-Hodgson conspiracy theories, the Journal is also touched by evil (presumably along with all the other publications in Humboldt County) because they choose to exercise their right to make endorsements, a right soon to be stripped from them by Measure T because they’ve dared to incorporate themselves. As the facts bear out, not only do these enforcements lack the overwhelming power ascribed to them (see Cherie Arkley’s failed bid to become Mayor of Eureka), but the contrary appears true in the case of the Advocate. Every single candidate who has ever had the misfortune of submitting a piece for Warford’s so-called election forum, from Harbor District to City Council, has in fact lost their election – Herbelin, Fritsche, Allen, Bravo, Lord, Scoggin and Winkler so far. Likewise, all candidates smart enough to avoid the Advocate like the plague have gone on to victory. Such a 100% rate of anti-success is difficult to attain in politics, even intentionally. Yet one more false claim emerges when Warford whines that “given the paper’s obvious lack of objectivity, is (sic) you’ll never see The Eureka Reporter critical of any of Arkley’s projects or investments.” While we’re certainly not in business to defend the practices of The Eureka Reporter or Rob Arkley, Jr., we have to admit the presence of at least some criticism of that publication’s ownership and coverage within its own pages – an example we’ve gladly set as well when we publish attacks on the Humboldt Sentinel from, among others, the Vice Mayor of Arcata (see “Councilmember Groves Wants It Straight” in this issue). No such criticism has ever been allowed within the pages of Warford’s Humboldt Advocate, either of himself or of what he chooses to print. In fact we’ve had to print a number of letters from frustrated writers who first sent their work to the Advocate to no avail (see “Media Reform Seems To Interest All Sides” from October 7, 2005 or “Meserve, Sopoci-Belknap Seem To Violate The Law In Use Of Petition Signatures” in this issue). The North Coast Journal has likewise been quite forthcoming in printing condemnatory letters regarding the allegedly slanted conduct of its reporting. Warford ought to start practicing allegiance to the concept of a “public forum” (a section which has been entirely devoid of content for the entire history of his website) before he starts preaching about it. Even weirder is Warford’s professed admiration for the ownership structure of The Times-Standard, that being its control by Denver-based Media News Group, especially when seen in light of his pandering to the Measure T crowd seeking to strip civil and political rights from all non-local corporations. Surely he jests about the Media News Group upholding “media for media’s sake” given their history of gobbling up local publications, busting their unions and instigating mass layoffs. As pointed out by Kali Lynn of The Denver Voice in a piece taking Media News Group to task for covering up the massive election fraud evident in the 2004 federal elections, “…after the formation of the Denver Newspaper Agency, all corporate reports at the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, for both the Rocky Mountain News’ parent company, The Denver Publishing Company, and the Denver Newspaper Agency are blacked out, a whole new meaning for media blackout. Before the merger, The Denver Publishing Company never blacked out these reports. It has become very difficult to determine just what properties Media News Group owns since they stopped updating their websites several years ago.” With these deluded attitudes emanating from the top of the Advocate’s editorial board, which consists of Shawn Warford and nobody else due to his intense paranoia, it’s clearer why the Humboldt Advocate is and will be the only publication around here which backs Measure T. This “local control” legislation will make The Times Standard, The Eureka Reporter and the North Coast Journal, as incorporated publications, subject to frivolous lawsuits for the “crime” of endorsing candidates for public office. It is Warford himself who is looking to “control and manipulate” his competition, with false editorials, baseless personal attacks and bad-mouthing against any perceived threat to his own publication, now compounded by an unconstitutional and anti-competitive ballot measure which will conveinently leave the Advocate untouched. Oh, did I mention? The Journal’s “unsubstantiated hit piece” on Warford was in fact entirely substantiated. I know, because I was there in the Humboldt Advocate office when Shawn produced a print-out of the letter written by ‘Jan Johnson’ containing all the threats, insinuations and weird personal obsessions cited by Hank Sims in his September 1, 2005 article, “The Story of Jan Johnson.” I was also at the Arcata Chamber of Commerce’s California Welcome Center on a subsequent Saturday (as the guestbook proves), where Warford pointed out the computer he used to send his hate mail to his former employer at The Arcata Eye – to the Chamber’s credit, they fired Warford right after these matters came to light. While I told Shawn at the time what a poor and possibly illegal idea it was to engage in such dubious activity, I remained publicly silent out of deference to the sanctity of the newsroom. Given Warford’s lack of respect for the craft of journalism, for the standards practiced by employers in California and for the incontrovertible truth as duly cited by the Journal, the Eye and the McKinleyville Press, I’ve been forced to come to the conclusion that Warford and his Advocate are in no way deserving of respect in return. Shawn Warford’s actions are those of a disturbed individual with a history of slander and threats against former employee and former employer alike, and a reckoning is more than overdue for the piss-poor journalism exhibited by the Humboldt Advocate. My only regret is waiting this long to set these matters aright. Charles Douglas is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Humboldt Sentinel. He can be reached at editor@humboldtsentinel.com. |
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Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
Looking
back these many months, I’m not entirely sure what the final straw
was which prompted me to come forward with this tale of journalistic debauchery.
It could have been the incessant copy-cat game of gotcha played by Humboldt
Advocate publisher, editor, advertising director and owner Shawn
Warford, who has successively moved his publication time, format, story
subjects and even office location to match that of the Humboldt Sentinel
(I’m sure we can look forward to his switch to a bi-weekly format
with increased content on his 