Read today’s Press Democrat’s biased article on yesterday’s peaceful memorial service for the dead trees surrounding the schools with some 700 students on Watertrough Rd. in the Sebastopol countryside being butchered by the Paul Hobbs Winery and weep. These children are like sacrificial lambs to the bloated wine industry. Pesticides, such as Hobbs uses, are documented to cause and worsen a variety of problems, including cancer, asthma, and developmental/reproductive problems.
The article is a classic example of unbalanced reporting. I accuse the PD of the following:
1. Professional journalism is supposed to have a "firewall" between its advertisers and its news. Hobbs and the wine industry advertise heavily in the PD, which treats them as heroes, which they are not. The wine industry rules Sonoma County. They are basically industrial alcohol producers, who have transformed the natural “Redwood Empire” into the commercial “Wine Country.” However, there are many good wine-grape growers who follow organic and sustainable practices here, which does not include Hobbs.
2. It is inaccurate to say "Twin Hills School District is working with Paul Hobbs..." They work FOR him, as does the Agricultural Commissioner.
3. Where is that "fence to limit the dust" that the article alleges? I did not see it when I was there yesterday, as the dust flowed over us.
4. Twin Hills Schools Superintendent Barbara Bickford has not taken "great strides to address the concerns" of parents and neighbors, as she contends. She lies as badly as do the Ag. Com. and the Hobbs PR person Tara Sharp.
5. Is the reporter blind? He writes,"Hobbs is required to water the fields during tree removal." Where was that water? The dust was so bad that I had to leave, or it could have ignited an asthma attack.
6. Hobbs is no "grower," as Superintendent Bickford alleges. He is an industrial alcohol producer with a long record of clear-cutting trees to extract more wealth from our county. He is no “local farmer,” as he contends, who gets his hands in the dirt, but a global wine baron with vineyards in at least half a dozen countries. He has a long history of skirting permits, paying paltry fines, and stealing land from neighbors. He skirts permits, pays the paltry fines, and steals land from his neighbors.
The PD article is not balanced; it is biased. It could be used in journalism classes on journalism, such as I’ve taught, as a sample of what not to do.
This vineyard conversion was a done deal long before the public heard about it. Government and school officials concealed the information that this travesty was going to happen, lacking transparency. Only until all permits and paperwork were finished for Hobbs to proceed did Bickford release information to parents.
This article is a cover for the Paul Hobbs Winery's contamination of that land and its poisoning of the students and others who visit those schools. Shame on them! Hobbs gives the many decent and real growers a bad name.
At least the PD got some good quotes from Thomas Cooper, a parent, of the new Apple Roots Group, the event’s organizer, and Lori Gatmaitan, a mother of one of the students. The direct action was theirs, which is what the focus should have been in the article. Instead, more ink was given to those defending Hobbs, a known bad apple and bad neighbor. But he is rich, and gives money to those who support him.
I hope some of you can join Lori and Thomas today around 2 p.m. at the bought-off Board of Supervisors. Why aren’t the supervisors representing their constituencies?
I imagine that Sonoma West News and Times will do a better job of reporting, as usual. Look for its coverage online Wed. night and in print Thur. a.m., well worth the 50 cents.
Shepherd Bliss, Apple Roots Group (ARG),
Whose mascot is the tenacious gopher :)