Making (up) News
Editorial staff

What’s a newspaper’s function, to report news or create it? The OC Register did it again, creating news on Nov. 5 about a council member, Lance MacLean. The same reporter on Sept. 28 wrote a “news” story that Councilwoman Trish Kelley had endorsed Frank Ury and Richard Atkinson in the council race. The September article was instead a publicity stunt to promote Kelley’s Oct. 16 party for Atkinson, which few residents attended.

Anyone who didn’t see the Nov. 5 article on MacLean can find it at:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/maclean-says-city-2218480-assault-reavis?orderby=TimeStampDescending&showRecommendedOnly=0&oncomments Page=1#slComments

The link includes reader comments – one suggesting MacLean is daft for agreeing to be featured as “Orange County’s only unemployed council member.”

Readers of this blog questioned the paper’s intent. One emailed, “Is the Register now trying to find MacLean a job?” Another commented, “It didn’t work as a positive piece, and any employer who goes online has a new reference to MacLean’s police record.” As another revelation about the Register, it took several months before the incident was in the paper. Why is it news today except to assist MacLean’s job search?

In October 2007, MacLean was at an Oktoberfest concert at UCI, where he worked. A restroom was locked, and students were urinating outdoors. When MacLean told a co-worker to unlock the door, he didn’t respond. According to the police report, MacLean picked him up by the neck and pinned him against a wall. The news story in UCI’s campus paper said it took four policemen to take MacLean down.

From the text of the Nov. 5 OCR story: “Though MacLean describes the incident as a minor skirmish, and says he was motivated by what he perceived to be a threat to student safety at a concert attended by hundreds of people … .”

As it turned out, the university was concerned about the safety of MacLean’s co-workers, and he lost his job. If MacLean’s explanation above doesn’t raise eyebrows, he later claims in the story that he wasn’t angry at the time he picked the guy up by the neck.

Just in case the folks at city hall are still congratulating themselves on pressuring OCR into publishing the story, they should notice MacLean’s picture. The shadows from the staircase make MacLean look as if he’s behind bars. Perhaps the reporter wasn’t so pleased after all to get roped into MacLean’s job search.