Forum Communications Finally Gets Around To Covering Fargo Juice Ordinance

Last week I wrote a post here on SAB, and a story over at Watchdog.org, about the City of Fargo making it illegal for daycares to give kids more than 6 ounces of juice a day.

Because apparently the city views private daycares as a public utility to be micromanaged by bureaucrats and politicians.

Before that, credit goes to Tony Gehrig – a former candidate for the Fargo City Commission – who first exposed the fact that the ordinance passed in a guest post here on SAB that went viral.

So, basically, the juice ordinance became an issue because Gehrig and I wrote about it here on SAB. Now Forum Communications is finally catching up to the story – reporter Dave Olson has an article published today – about an ordinance that was passed by the City Commission last month, and they can’t even bring themselves to mention SAB or Watchdog in their article.

Despite making a direct reference to a quote I got from recently-elected Commissioner Dave Piepkorn and published in my Watchdog article:

Dave Piepkorn, a conservative who was elected to the city commission in June and took office after the new rules were passed, could not be reached for comment.

However, his views on the new ordinance can be found in the blogosphere, where he is quoted as stating the regulations go too far and cover areas parents should have control over.

It seems to me that if you’re going to reference reporting other people/publications have done, you should do your readers courtesy of at least using the actual name of the publication/reporter. If not an outright link.

Not that I care if I get the credit or not – it’s Gehrig who actually broke this story – and links from online newspaper articles don’t send that much traffic anyway. Plus, I’m flattered that the folks at Forum Communications acknowledge that so many people read SAB that it can be referred to casually (in North Dakota anyway) as “the blogosphere” with readers knowing exactly who is being talked about.

But isn’t it kind of petty for the reporters/editors to ignore where the information came from? I always name and link my sources.

Regardless, I’m glad the juice ordinance is getting more attention, and I’m proud to say that it’s SAB leading the way in shining the light on these sort of overreaching policies.

That’s why I created this site.