Hearst Newspapers: Boy Scouts logging their lands, and not always the right way
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer may be on the auction block and likely to fold soon, but if so it’s going out with its head held high – for one thing, it sure kicked the bejabbers out of the boy scouts, huh? That does show mettle, as it seems a sketchy ploy for rebuilding circulation. Not that the kids are targets. It’s the adults in charge of Boy Scouts of America and who, via regional councils, manage the considerable land the organization owns for its summer camps. A PI Team led a nationwide investigation by reporters at Hearst newspapers including the San Antonio Express-News, Albany Times-Union, Houston Chronicle, and San Francisco Chronicle. The tone is set by the lead piece from the PI’s Lewis Kamb, with a hed declaring “Profit trumps preservation for Boy Scout councils nationwide.” The pic above right accompanies it, showing a timber harvest on Boy Scout land near the town of Elma, Washington, about 40 miles from the Pacific coast. The package’s theme line, below, underscores the message.
To back up some of its sources’ declarations that the Boy Scouts are guilty of hypocrisy, the long piece includes as a gotcha at its end verbiage straight from the scouting organization itself, including its explanations of Scout Law, its Outdoor Code, the qualifications for a Forestry Merit Badge, and a motto: “Leave No Trace.”
Washington, being a state with many lumbermen and other loggers, provides some pretty zesty commentary among the published readers’ reactions. Some defend the PI. Most of them say “So? They sell trees? Who cares?” etc. One snarky one asks, “the hearst papers – wonder how many acres of timber they’ve destroyed over the past 20 years.” That’s a good question, actually. Many also go off on tangents, castigating this as just one more anti-scout episode from a press that tarred the scouts in the past for excluding homosexuals from their organization, and atheists too. Both, The Tracker agrees, are good reasons to get on the scouts’ case – I’ll never forget, as a high school freshman, being invited by a friend to a big jamboree campout but warned something like, “Charlie, do not to say a word about being an atheist. We’ll both get in trouble.” It amazed me then, and now.
The reporting, from this corner, looks sound. But it reminds The Tracker of, back in the day, occasionally covering the city health department’s inspections of restaurants. They don’t say “saw a mouse” in their reports, they’d say “rodent droppings under counters” and that’s disgusting. One could find such a line attached to some of the classiest eateries in town, driving customers right back to their home stovetops. Similarly, extensive recounting from state logging inspectors’ reports of hillsides left bare, of riparian corridors silted, of dirt roads allowed to deteriorate, of drainages downstream home to threatened salmon, of old snags cut when they ought be left as habitat, of cutting right to streamsides, and so on sound and probably are often bad.
What the package lacks is context. Specifically, do the councils tend to be among the better or worse forestry managers among private land owners? If they’re well below par, then it’s a big story. Otherwise, not so much.
The piece includes an elaborate graphic, built around a Google Earth image of the US, with details on specific instances of logging on scout land, plus a Slideshow ;
Accompanying, regional sidebar stories:
- San Francisco Chronicle – Seth Rosenfeld : California scouts logged in sensitive areas; Yes, but the piece largely suggests the local councils’ follow responsible forestry, mostly.
- Albany Times-Union Nadja Drost : New York camp a virtual parking lot/ Council says diseased trees posed a danger to boys ;
- Seattle PI – Lewis Kamb : Settlement silenced critics of logging ;
- Seattle PI – Lewis Kamb : Conservationist’s gift logged for profit ;
The series continues on Monday. The package’s main site is here;
Grist for the Mill: BSA Response ; Which the Hearst papers, properly, include linked in their package.
