Newsweek Burned In Lakewood
Today was yet another sign of the growing backlash over Newsweek's reprinting of their error-ridden "America's Best High Schools: The List" in which "Lakewood High School, Lakewood, Ohio" was reported as 229th, 6th best in Ohio. It then turned out that Newsweek meant Lakewood High School in Colorado. Lakewood High School in Ohio did not even make the list.
While it was a shock to Lakewoodites that their High School was not on the list, it was what followed that really started to burn some residents. Newsweek themselves and the regional press took a very nasty slant on the magazine's error-filled list. Comments like "How could Lakewood residents ever believe they would be rated that high?" and "Well they should have known," were comments made on local media about Newsweek's blunder.
Well the fact is, Lakewood is damn proud of its school system, and the city's dedication to education.
How proud?
In a downturned economy, in a region that is still suffering from steel heading to China, Lakewood citizens have invested over $25 million dollars in the construction of three state-of-the art schools, and the renovation of four others. So dedicated are residents to their schools that they recently once again reached into their pockets and overwhelmingly passed another levy to make sure the system had enough funding to continue. While Lakewood schools needed to make significant cuts, they did not need to make the massive devastating cuts other schools in the area had to make. So dedicated that the school has started numerous innovative programs to bring real-life job skills to their students with local businesses, including the community-written hyper-local paper that was started by Lakewood High School graduates, and is changing the face of print media, enlarging and growing faster than papers are closing around the country.
Another commitment this inner ring suburb has made to education is their newly rebuilt $12 million library, designed by Robert AM Stern. This is a city that refuses to turn its back on education no matter how bad the economy is.
Yes, Lakewoodites believed it, and were proud of their collective work.
Then word started to travel through the community that Newsweek had made a mistake. Someone in their editing process had confused Lakewood, Ohio with Lakewood, Colorado. Simple enough mistake, both are called Lakewood High School, both are in cities where the local paper is called the Lakewood Observer. Both are in America. But had the staff of Newsweek paused for even one second they would have realized that Lakewood High School, along with other schools in Ohio, had NO chance of being on the list because it was never even asked to submit judging criteria.
Hmmmmmmm, really.
Where did they get this list and how could they call it "America's Best High Schools" if they hadn't collected and surveyed information from all of America's High Schools?
This list was faulty way before Newsweek's editors started confusing their cities, it's nothing more than a gimmick to get people to go to Newsweek's website to see if "my kid's school made it."
As soon as they call up the site, they are bombarded by at least 5 different ways to register for "stuff" that would all but guarantee Newsweek a great harvest of new emails to send subscription items to or to sell the email lists themselves. The fact is that Newsweek is for sale, and they're getting desperate because no one's interested in coming to the firesale. As one of the headlines from Yahoo News put it last month: "Likely Newsweek buyers not exactly thronging the market."
Well, Lakewood was not alone in the mistakes made in the Newsweek list. Independence High School of Columbus, Ohio, was also on the list and they had the credentials that should have taken them to 1,594th. But alas, Newsweek Contributing Editor Jay Mathews said the honor didn't belong to the Independence High in Columbus. The list should have referenced a high school in northeastern Ohio. Perhaps they were talking about Independence High School in Independence, Ohio. But why worry about facts, fact-checking, or even creating a real list that allows all schools to submit, not just those invited?
Even worse, it would seem that most, if not all, of the materials in Newsweek's assessments of cities, were lifted directly from Wikipedia. Let's be honest, while Wikipedia is growing and is a noble project, it is hardly the pillar of 100% truth that is associated with official, credentialed encyclopedias. In addition, we have not seen any credit given to Wikipedia for writing as much as two thirds of the piece.
When I first heard of the "award," I was wondering who, in this era of schools struggling for survival, and massive teacher layoffs, would pit school system against school system. I then heard it was "Newsweek" and wondered whether there had been some mistake. . . I thought back to how much I used to enjoy reading Jonathan Alter in Newsweek and how much I now look forward to his reports on MSNBC, happy that he's landed on his feet after Newsweek has gone out of business. I guess they're still in business- well kind of.
While sixth in the state does not really sound like number one, I didn't think that this little bit of fluff would have any impact on the city of Lakewood, but it did. The first sign of it was regional papers like the Plain Dealer and the Sun printing the article right away on their websites. Desperate to get there first at all costs, they didn't bother checking the facts, if the Fourth Estate says it is so, it must be true. What was troubling was the glee they then took in recanting the story, after Newsweek admitted its mistake. The regional media loves being tough on the inner-ring suburbs, but not their own hometowns. Most, if not all, took great relish in pointing out what schools in the area were, in their opinion, better than Lakewood.
So we decided to do something about it.
We are starting with running Newsweek out of town. Our drive to get Newsweek subscribers to cancel their subscriptions is underway. To date we have only found two people in town willing to admit they still subscribe to Newsweek. One was too embarrassed to admit it and finally claimed it was a present for her 80th birthday. Her son thought she would enjoy it, as she likes the tabloids. The second mentioned that he only reads Jonathan Alter, but enjoys seeing him on MSNBC more, and would not be renewing. Both of these people have been invited to the ad hoc "Burn Newsweek Party."
Others in the community have said...
Dr. Joe P. Madak, Superintendent of Lakewood Schools:
"It was a shock, to think Newsweek would make so many mistakes in an article. They have never asked us for any information about our schools. We are proud of Lakewood High School and of our Lakewood Schools. We are proud of our students, staff, parents, and community for the good schools we have. There are so many good things about Lakewood High School and Lakewood Schools that we do not have to promote ourselves at the expense of other schools to make us look good. There are so many good things about the ways is which our Lakewood community values and supports education that the quality of our good schools and our good community is not diminished by this questionable research nor singular "Newsweek" event. We will continue to work with our community to keep our Lakewood Schools and our Lakewood community strong."
Matt Markling, father of three, lawyer, school board member:
"Lakewood High School is one of the premier high schools in the State of Ohio. Had Newsweek actually collected data on our high school, we may very well have been ranked higher than first reported based upon the criteria which appears to have been used by the magazine."
Heidi Hilty, mother of three - community organizer, financial advisor:
"What is so disappointing about Newsweek is not their incredible faux pas, but rather their failure to investigate and report on communities who support their school districts by passing levies and bond issues and have actively engaged citizens."
Steve Davis, father of five, sales rep:
"They really blew it. The criteria for the Newsweek schools study was a joke, and the research was worse. If Lakewood Schools had won first place, a lot of people would celebrate, but it wouldn't mean much. People love lists of rankings. They're always big sellers. Rolling Stone does it with guitarists and albums. Usually pretty shallow, but fun to discuss.
There's a photo of me with Jonathan Alter at the 2008 Obama/Clinton debate. Is that the day that Newsweek turned its back on journalistic integrity and Lakewood, Ohio? I'm only half joking, because I like Jonathan Alter as an analyst, and I'd love to have him on the Lakewood Observer staff after Newsweek folds. Oh, and I think Lakewood Schools are great."
Kristine Pagsuyoin, mother of two, community activist, lifestyle coach:
"Lakewood is a great community with great schools. Our families aren't going to give much credence to anybody's ranking (we never have) because we know firsthand what a great education our kids get. We will always accept a good ranking, but we don't work hard to be excellent because of that, we do it because we value education and our kids."
Betsy Voinovich, mother of three - filmmaker:
"My mom subscribed to Newsweek throughout my childhood and doesn't believe that Jonathan Alter, with his journalistic integrity and ability, could have had anything to do with this. My son informed me that his fourth grade teacher doesn't allow her students to use Wikipedia because of the potential it has for providing faulty, biased information. And if they use information without quoting the source on a report, they have to start over."
Jim Marquard - sales rep:
"One of the reasons I moved to Lakewood was the schools. I think it shows poorly on Newsweek for not even looking into the schools on the list. This city is all about education, and accountability."
Chuck Reidy, father of three, engineer :
"Newsweek? Haven't seen one in years."
Winston Churchill, father of five, Prime Minister of England, 1940-1945 and again from 1951-1955 (from Wikipedia, rechecked at http://Nobelprize.org, Official Website of the Nobel Prize):
"All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes."
So the question is, will Newsweek learn from their mistakes?
This reporter thinks not, unless Jon Meacham acquires it, or it goes out of business.
As for hiring Jonathon Alter at the Lakewood (Ohio) Observer, we always will have a desk waiting for him, or other good reporters like him.
In actuality, no Newsweeks were destroyed in this photo-op. Lakewoodites are not "book burners," Not to mention we had to drive two cities away just to find a copy of Newsweek on a newstand!