Some of us, including all of the homes on the barrier island, received an unexpected arrival in last week’s mail. Another newspaper – a rather unique newspaper.
A privately owned, Oregon-based, monthly newspaper that calls itself the U.S. Observer, which apparently relies on clients’ fees to fund investigations that provide the core of its stories.
That’s strange. Even stranger, though, is that it showed up here with two Vero Beach stories on its front page.
“We do things completely different,” Observer owner and publisher Edward Snook said.
I’ll say.
Charging $95 per hour to investigate whether someone has been wrongly convicted by our legal system or cheated by another party?
I’ve been in this business for 35 years and never – NEVER – have I heard of a newspaper operating with a private detective’s fee structure.
But getting back to Vero Beach … How did the Observer find its way here from Grants Pass, Oregon?
Why would Snook pay the postage to have his December 2014 issue mailed directly to at least 15,000 homes in our community?
Better yet: Who in Vero Beach paid for the investigations that spawned the stories about Manny Casares’ troubled home purchase and Fred Luongo’s shut-down food bank?
Snook, who had gruffly hung up on me two days earlier and had someone on his staff check out my credentials on the Internet before agreeing to an interview, was guarded in his responses.
Not only did he refuse to divulge the source of his paper’s investigations into these two stories, but he also shrugged off questions about exactly how many Observers were mailed here, and which residences were targeted to receive them.
“Eventually,” he said, “you’ll know why we did what we did.”
I can hardly wait.
Editorially, the Observer appears to have a Libertarian slant. But Snook said his newspaper’s primary mission is precisely what it says under its banner: Vindicating the Innocent.
For a price, of course.
According to the newspaper’s website: “People who are wrongly charged with crimes can hire the U.S. Observer to investigate their case.
This does not mean the U.S. Observer will support a client that is shown to be guilty through a thorough investigation – in such an event, the client will be dropped immediately.
“Should it be determined that the client is, in fact, innocent, our evidence is first given to the authorities, typically the district attorney … Should the D.A. ignore the evidence and continue pursuing the prosecution, our first step is to inform the public through the publication of an article that injustice is going on in their area.
“The only thing that the enemies of justice hate is exposure! … In short, we use our newspaper and its supporting internet presence as a club against corrupt people and the evil they take part in.”
Which sounds terrific.
Heck, as a starry-eyed journalism student who graduated from college in the wake of Watergate, exposing wrongdoing was a big reason I got into this noble profession.
But there’s something about charging clients to pursue injustice that doesn’t feel quite right.
Actually, it feels wrong.
And so does this: The Observer story claiming Casares was misled by local realtor Ron Hughes was old news – real old news – and makes no mention of the fact that Hughes died in March.
You’d think that would be relevant, especially since the story also refers to Hughes as a “realtor (Casares) is still in litigation with today.”
Surely, someone told Snook Hughes had tragically died, right?
For what it’s worth, Snook said he has been publishing his newspaper for 24 years and, though not a trained journalist, stands by his mercenary brand of journalism.
He said he has been sued only once – “The case was dismissed on summary judgment” – and politicians and law enforcement officials have never followed through on threats to take him to court.
We’ll see if anything happens here.
My guess is, this probably is the last time we’ll see the Observer in our mailboxes. But who knows?
“I’m not coming to Vero Beach,” Snook said, “but there might be more stories there for us.”
Sure. But unless mystery funders are willing to pay for them …