Since it’s been a couple of week’s since Noah Krom’s passing and we’ve given the Krom family some time to grieve (and they will likely require more time than a couple of weeks), it’s high time to address some unpleasantness in the OC blogsphere.
For every spirited exchange we have with readers and other bloggers online, there’s always interesting offline conservations that happen in email. Readers are shielded, but recently our friends at the OJ Blog have begun airing these messages for their readers.
With two stories Art Pedroza wrote about the death of Noah Krom, a number of charges and incidents happened we feel compelled to address.
- Anonymous rumors about what happened the night Noah died were published without an eyewitness account; this amounts to third party hearsay that still hasn’t proven to be factual and only served to hurt the family.
- Commentors with the tamarity to post a complaint under their own name (and not an alias) had their business web sites broadcast on OJ with unsubstantiated charges that these individuals were being paid by the Krom campaign and the information posted by an anonymous blogger no less. An anonymous blogger who actually contacted to campaign to find out if a commenter, who is a PR consultant and is a former TV reporter in OC, was working for the campaign.
- Another charge that this said TV reporter sat on stories he reported.
- A tasteless joke was allowed to be posted.
- A charge that the Krom campaign deliberately sat on this information. The Krom family and campaign were grieving.
- A charge that the Liberal OC was censoring stories.
- Continued insistence by Art Pedroza that he “broke” this story. It was posted first on Red County with a respectful heartfelt post from Matt Cunningham. The Liberal OC was next followed by the OC Register. OJ was 4th at best and the only fresh angle offered was a link to a story in the Santa Barara newspaper about a body being found.
- A charge that Sean Emery of the OC Register was cowardly for not crediting OJ for their “breaking news development.” We spoke with Sean. He stands by his reporting.
- A commentor to Art’s site reported to us his/her comment was edited and posted under his/her name; so it appears that OJ is editing comments?
- Insistence that an OC Weekly report about the Santa Barbara TV news coverage of the Krom death somehow vindicated OJ’s coverage. OC Weekly responsibly reported that none of the information had been confirmed by authorities and the TV coverage didn’t include actually eyewitnesses — just kids saying what they had heard. The OJ Blog left out this detail.
- Liberal OC Bloggers were accused of being paid by the Krom campaign or promised jobs with the Krom campaign. Of course, neither charge is true.
- An open request for Krom’s executive assistant’s email address so the OJ team “could tell on” those of us who complained about OJ’s rumor and supposition reporting.
- Rehashed finger pointing about Matt Cunningham’s inadvertent posting of the names of church sexual abuse victims when he launched a website in support of Msgr. Urell (can we give that a rest already? Matt’s apologize for it many times), this blog’s treatment of Edgardo Reynoso, legal compliants filed against Reynoso by two former campaign workers, and this blog’s decision to post a posed photo of “Aloha,” a homeless Santa Ana woman — none of which have anything to do with Noah Krom.
- Not a single person commenting using their real name, blog or traditional media outlet came to the defense of Art Pedroza and the OJ blog other than their own co-bloggers. Not Red County, not Sunny D, not PowderBlue, not Orange Punch, not Total Buzz, not OC Progressive, not Navel Gazing, not Steven Greenhut, not Gustavo Arellano, not Art’s former webmistress Sarah Michelle Spinosa. Speak now or forever hold your peace.
- Accusations that our calls for decency and appropriate journalism standards were our “jealously” over blog hits.
So our question to Art is: Have you no decency sir? Have you no decency?
Here’s some of our email exchanges, edited only to remove email addresses. Start from the bottom of the message and scroll up.
Note from Chris Prevatt:
Art,
You deserve no such apology. You ran with unsubstantiated information, in reckless disregard for any consequences. While some of that information turned out to be true, much of your analysis and supposition was baseless. You then approved and posted comments that were nothing more than rumor and that attacked the integrity of a young man who had died in a tragic accident.
Your suggestion that your coverage was legitimate coverage of a news story is a delusion of your own sick mind. We all did the same research you did. We chose to hold until some level of official confirmation occurred. That is simply being responsible, which you have no ability to comprehend.
Your post and the subsequent comments you approved were beyond any level of appropriate standards or conduct. There is no excuse for your behavior and you will no receive any apology from me. All you deserve, and all you should expect is condemnation.
You and your crew are less evolved and compassionate than earthworms. Which is actually fitting since your site is pretty much fertilized dirt.
——Original Message——
From: Art Pedroza
To: Chris Prevatt
To: Mr. Matt Cunningham
Cc: Red Vixen
Cc: Mr. Sean H. Mill
ReplyTo: Art Pedroza
Subject: Re: Noah Krom
Sent: Jun 9, 2009 1:37 PM
So Chris and Matt, are you two going to apologize now that the media has corroborated my Krom post, and many of the comments?
Art
From: apedroza@
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 12:21:37 +0000
To: Chris Prevatt
Subject: Re: Noah Krom
You’re an ass. My source was a news site – in fact I found at least six such sites including more than one tv station.
It was obvious that the two victims were one and the same. So why not run the story?
You guys were too lazy to work on this story. I wasn’t.
Pray tell, are any of the “facts” going to deviate from what I ran with? If so, go back and read my post. I made sure to leave myself plenty of squish room.
BTW, your BFF Jerbal ran a story indicating that Noah died from a “severe fall.” Did you send him a nastygram too? I doubt it!
The fact is, your piece of shit blog gets one third the weekly traffic that mine does – and you can’t stand that. Too bad! Maybe you guys should try not being such blue hacks.
Art
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
From: “Chris Prevatt”
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 00:16:00 -0700
To: ‘r, Art Pedroza’
Subject: Noah Krom
Art,Did it occur to you that maybe, out of respect for the family, the details could have been left for a day. If you had done a little more research you might have found out that the Sheriff’s department is scheduled to release more information on Monday. But no, you had to run with supposition before facts. All in an attempt top get a scoop at the expense of a grieving family.Sick, sick, sick!You should modify your post until you have all the information. A person of character would do so.
Chris Prevatt
_______________
the header on this is from Chris Prevatt:
And then there’s this ditty, where Art thinks that Beth Krom should drop out of the race.
Continuing a campaign that her son actively supported is callous? You’ve got some twisted logic going on there Art.
You are a real piece of work Art.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
—–Original Message—–
From: apedroza@earthlink.net
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:41:34
To: Dan Chmielewski; Chris Prevatt; Mr. Matt Cunningham
Cc: Red Vixen; Mr. Sean H. Mill
Subject: Re: Noah Krom
Why not? It would make her seem callous to stay in the race.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
—–Original Message—–
From: “Dan Chmielewski”
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 17:17:57
To: <apedroza@>; <chris prevatt; ‘Mr. Matt Cunningham'<
Cc: ‘Red Vixen’; ‘Mr. Sean H. Mill’
Subject: RE: Noah Krom
Which is why you cozied up to Janet Nguyen and Lou Correa; the difference between us is we don’t edit someone’s comments and post it while claiming to advocate free speech.
This has NOTHING to do with politics and everything you do with the tragic death of a young man that you’ve exploited for hits to a blog that makes no
money on advertising.Krom should withdraw? You’re pathetic.
—–Original Message—–
From: apedroza@
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 5:09 PM
To: Dan Chmielewski; Chris Prevatt; Mr. Matt Cunningham
Cc: Red Vixen; Mr. Sean H. Mill
Subject: Re: Noah Krom
You know the difference between us and the red and blue blogs in town is that we have no interest in schmoozing the politicians.
The info was good enough for a tv station, so why aren’t you pestering them?
I think you guys are playing politics as you want Krom to continue to campaign.
I think she ought to withdraw – ASAP.
Art
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
—–Original Message—–
From: “Dan Chmielewski”
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 16:56:49
To: Chris Prevatt; ‘Art Pedroza’; ‘Mr. Matt Cunningham
Cc: ‘Red Vixen’; ‘Mr. Sean H. Mill’
Subject: RE: Noah Krom
from the Naval Gazing article:
“With little else to go on from official sources, the Santa Barbara media has also tried to piece together those final hours. ***None of the following has been confirmed by authorities***” And this includes the eyewitness accounts, one from an unnamed “young woman.”
So wonder why you left that little detail out of your new post Art?
Because its exposes you as a fraud.
I think it’s you who owes an apology to the Krom family.
—-
Noah Krom died as the result of an accident. The coronor’s report is still being developed, but there’s no evidence of foul play or a suicide. Noah died accidently. It’s not like he was sucking on the end of a gun barrel, slicing his wrist open or sitting in a closed garage with the motor running. More than 1,000 people paid tribute to Noah and the Krom family, with speeches from his classmates at Uni High and UCSB being deeply moving. But Noah’s brother Hershel did the best job of honoring his brother’s memory.
The Krom family has a long record of citizenship and community in Irvine. Art did his best to drag the memory of Noah Krom through the mud in an effort to boost his ego to generate hits for a blog that has sold less than $500 in advertising in five years plus (per documents he filed with the City of Santa Ana). Art doesn’t contribute to the debate; he debases it with insults, rumors, and yellow journalism. We have two choices: ignore this bully or stand up to him.
Recently, in a post about the OC Fairgrounds marketing campaign, Art erronously reported that bloggers from Red County and The Liberal OC accepted tickets. We wrote and asked for a correction. He gave us a hard time about it but couldn’t come up with a name of any past or present Liberal OC blogger who accepted tickets. And he made a dig about the number of bloggers we’ve “lost over the years.” The nature of blogs is that writers do come and go. It happens on every blog. And some bloggers are more active than others. Our complete list of former “bloggers” (excluding those guest bloggers) includes people like:
Andrew Davey; Heather Pritchard; Sean Mill; Mike Lawson; Reggie Munkis; Steve Kim; and Mike DeFreitas.
That’s seven people in three years. Some members of our blog team simply don’t post that freuqnetly but they are still on the team.
But Art’s string of former bloggers is just a little longer:
Thomas Gordon; Luis Rodriguez; Jim Walker; John Selier; Sean Mill; Quang X. Pham; Sara Spinosa; Claudio Gallegos; Vern Nelson; Little Saigon Insider; Roy Reynolds; Chris Emami; Sandy Genis; Gila Jones; Tish Leon; “Abeyance”; Mike Randall; Ryan Gene Trabuco; Dan Kalman (who was named an OJ blogger but I believe never actually filed a post). That’s 20 bloggers. I’m not sure how many of these people would have a good thing to say about Art Pedroza moving forward. So Art has lost twice the number of bloggers that we have. What does it mean? Not much.
We’re committed to making our blog the best it can be. And we’ll be writing for it regardless of whether we have 5,000 readers a month or 5.
——-
And a quick note to Red Vixen who suggested Dan Chmielewski was using Noah Krom’s death to inflate his PR billings. Your charge is false. The Krom camapign is not a client of Dan’s business. Dan has already contributed $2,400 to Krom’s campaign for Congress. Your charge that Dan would use this tragedy for personal profit is the very definition of callous, demeaning and defamatory. It’s a charge made without proof, and with careless disregard for the truth. And that you make it while hiding behind an alias makes it more reprehensible. If you did in fact give money to the Krom campaign and you had any character at all, you’d let them know who you were so they could return your money to you.
—–
A few of us at The Liberal OC have already made a contribution to the Noah J.Krom Foundation. The address is:
The Noah J. Krom Foundation c/o JCFOC
1 Federation Way, Suite 210
Irvine, CA 92603-0174
We frankly dare the bloggers at OJ to cut a check themselves.
Don’t take the bait Pedroza.
Let this one go away like a worthless Jubal post.
Don’t do it. It’s a cheap hook.
agreed, this is a ridiculous post! you might as well put “paid for by Krom for congress” at the bottom of this blog already! this website deserves no attention.
Krom has paid nothing. And its the OJ Blog that deserves no attention.
I’m confused. Who is the victim in the post? Is it Krom or Dan/Chris? I mean liberals are so good claiming victim hood status that it looks like they are climbing over each other to say poor poor me.
Dan, you take plenty of shots at people. And I don’t see you criticizing King Larry for bringing Shea’s daughter into a city election back in the 90s.
Should he apologize? Write about that if you want to be fair. Criticize Larry and ask Beth if she supports Larry’s tactic back then. Dare you.
Don —
There is ZERO evidence that Larry “brought Shea’s daughter into a city election in the 90s.” Shea was termed out then and not on the ballot and Shea’s problems were made public via voice mails issued by the late Council member Dave Christensen. Only Shea accused Larry of “leaking” the story to the press and even Frank Mickadeit reported recently that there is no evidence that this ever happened.
The difference in Shea’s case and Krom’s is that Shea’s daughter committed a crime that she pleaded guilty to (she really had no choice; while she had the right to remain silent, someone should have put a gag on her mother) and the voicemails released by Christensen contained threats from Shea to use the power of her office on the Irvine City Council in a punitive fashion to go after the Irvine PD.
Noah Krom committed no crime and died as the result of an accident. Beth Krom has not used her position as a city council member to extract any special consideration for her family in this case. Who is the victim here? Everyone through the lowering of the standards of public discourse.
If you have proof that Larry did something untoward or unethical about Shea’s daughter, please bring it forward. There was a police report about Shea’s daughter’s arrest and a subsequent report that she had a second arrest in San Diego. Was that earleir arrest Larry’s fault too? This case is old news; there’s no evidence. Only Christina Shea’s insistence that Larry did something wrong.
And for a moment, let’s assume that Larry did leak the news to the media. When Matt Cunninghgam broke the story on Noah Krom’s death, his source was someone who got it from an Irvine city council member. Given Matt’s circle of friends, that council member was likely Shea or Choi. Nice of them to both show up for Krom’s memorial service, though Choi made it 90 minutes late.
And I only take shots at Republicans who have no problem taking shots at Democrats. It’s called fair play.
What is it about some bloggers?
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/your-los-angeles-angels-of-ana/angels-fans-why-do-you-let-dod/index.php
Gustavo does not care for commenters who may, on occasion – not as a matter of habit, comment with 2 different anonymous names. What is the big deal? I don’t get it.
In my quest for an answer Gustavo deleted the following comment:
Gustavo – This is an interesting conversation that you are having with junior and Angel Fan.
Please explain to me what the problem is with (a) posting under more than one anonymous name – as opposed to (b) posting under a single anonymous name.
Why do you consider commenter (a) cowardly and a troll and commenter (b) not cowardly and not a troll – both are using anonymous names.
Heck – all commenters could use the name “anonymous.” Really, I don’t get it – please explain.
junior / Angel Fan
Gustavo can delete or publish comments on his blog based on his judgement. Censorship, for those who need a civics lesson, pertains to the government censoring the media. Media, including blogs, can decide what is appropriate to publish or not publish based on a variety of concerns, values and standards.
So Gustavo does not have to answer the question you posed here.
Frankly, I prefer people comment under their own names. I believe we are one of the few political blogs in OC that requires our bloggers to post under their own names.
Certainly Gustavo can delete or publish comments based on his judgement, concerns, values and standards. However, it is those things and his fairness that I call into question.
Gustavo calls me a coward and a troll and will not let me defend myself from those charges on his blog. Why does he in effect shut off debate by name calling? There is no debate after that, there is only confrontation.
I don’t speak for Gustavo. We’ll shut down a thread if its hujacked or the conversation no longer follows the point of the original post. But that’s a matter of opinion.
OJ has a post up on Beth Krom’s campaign. Of course, they aren’t big fans of Melahat, but when a commenter provided stats of how much Democrat party registration has grown under Melahat’s watch, anonymous blogger RedVixen demands the commenter provide links to prove his/her claims. If only Vixen would hold Art Pedroza to the same standards…
Two other observations on RedVixen: she claims to have attended Noah Krom’s memorial. After the sort of drivel allowed on OJ which she could have deleted, it strikes me that she is a brazen and callous hypocrite for going to the service.
And she seems to be highly critical of Krom’s team, even though Krom has won, oh, five more elections that Art Pedroza has. Kinda hard to take campaign advice from someone who lacks either the spine or testicular fortitude to attach such negative rhetoric while hiding behind an alias.
Art posted a comment where he made a correction at my request that I am not a Krom campaign spokesman; but because Sean Emery quoted me in the initial Register story, well, per Art, I must be one…
ah, no. I’m not.
I have known Beth for years and I support her campaign. No matter how many times you tell these people at OJ they have it wrong, they just can’t seem to grasp what reality. Because while they are certainly entitled to their own opinions, they aren’t entitled to their own facts.
If Beth needs any advice on how to lose a campaign, I’m sure Art will be her first call. But if she ever needs to edge out Steve Rocco in a race, Art’s advice would be awesome.
I hereby like to rename the OJ Blog the “Weak Sauce Blog”, because the first cogent argument from Art And Red Vixen will lead to the destruction of our entire plane of existence. If you ask them to provide information as to why they feel the way they do, or better yet tell us how they would do things differently, they become apoplectic. Then they break out the same old, tired arguement– the DPOC is this, Melahat is that.
Art claims that he’s running a “political opinion” blog. For an opinion to matter has to based on facts as they are; its apparent for Art that his opinion is based on facts as he wants to be. And its so apparent that their agenda is to bad-mouth the DPOC and specifically Melahat. But when push comes to shove, they can’t provide any evidence to back their claims, or specifically what they would do differently– other than drive the Party off the cliff.
I have no idea why they loathe her the way they do. What wrong that either the DPOC or Melahat has committed against them. But its apparent to me that he OJ blog knows as much about OC politics as I do about particle physics, string theory, or the 2-3 match-up zone–just enough to be dangerous……
What is it about bloggers Sean Mill and Gustavo that makes them mean-spirited and vindictive?
They both called me out as a troll and Gustavo compared my comments to those of a well known SA loony-bird; yet Gustavo will not allow me to defend myself from those charges. http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/your-los-angeles-angels-of-ana/angels-fans-why-do-you-let-dod/#comments
I believe I know the answer.
Gustavo is pissed that I objected to a “hat-tip” he received from Allan Bartlett of Red County blog. http://www.redcounty.com/orange-county/2009/03/jeff-andrade-versus-the-oc-dio
Sean Mill is pissed that he and his hinky SA Planning Commission are – ZERO for EVERYTHING – in every issue with which I have been involved in support of residents and businesses against the thuggery of his commission.
junior
Art is nothing more than Sean Mill and Red Vixen’s B_TCH. He follows along with whoever makes him feel like he is in the in crowd. He only abandoned Janet after she refused to endorse him for City Council. Before that, the so called crusader for Latino Civil Rights gave her a free pass when she insulted Latino immigrants. Art is the poster boy for giving free passes to anyone who sucks up to him the most.
Why are we giving those idiots free press?
Everyone knows that the Juice is nothing more than rubbernecking for OC political insiders. It’s like driving past a crash on the freeway, you look because it’s human nature, you leave because it was much ado about a fender bender. They’re a joke and have zero credibility.
Besides, why talk about a blog that makes up identities to make it look like they’re getting more hits than they are. The folks they attract as writers are generally wacky and are ignored by both Dems and Republicans, so who cares?
Oh yeah, it’s fun to poke at them so you have more crap to read later. I don’t go there as a rule, it just makes me feel dirty and I don’t like supporting their pathetic need for attention.
I think people need to know Art’s motives are all about numbers. That’s why I put the emails up and while I removed the email addresses, I left the recipients alone so our frieds at OJ can’t say I’ve altered them. I’d rather read a blog with repsonsible citizen journalism than irresponsible gossip
Dan, you are a tool. You bring up all kinds of unsubstantiated rumors about people and then say poor Beth Krom. She is a tool just like you. You should have a donut with her.
Pray tell, F. Lee. What rumor did I write about thats unsubstantiated? Details please
Rumor: “When Matt Cunninghgam broke the story on Noah Krom’s death, his source was someone who got it from an Irvine city council member. Given Matt’s circle of friends, that council member was likely Shea or Choi.”
Where is your evidence of any of that?
Did you just pull it out of your butt?
Did Matt tell you that?
Tool.
Process of elimination. It wasn’t Larry or Sukhee; it wasn’t Beth. That leaves two. That was hardly a stretch.
I dare you to hold Christina Shea to the same standard
That makes no sense and again you are refusing to take responsibility for your words and actions. Like liberals commonly do.
I’ll make it easy for you–did Matt tell you that he got his info about Beth’s son from an Irvine council member? How do you know that? Or did you just make it up? Please answer my question.
It is amazing that you talk about other’s irresponsible blog postings and then you turn around and just make stuff up. And post it online. Kettle meet pot.
Matt told me he got his information from someone who got it from an Irvine City Council member. City Councilors were briefed Saturday. I’ve spoken with Larry and Sukhee; it’s not them. It wasn’t Beth. That leaves two others. I’m comfortable with the conclusions I’ve drawn. Even if you aren’t. Got any other examples bright eyes?
A rumor by definition is a statement or report current without known authority for its truth.
Here, you are starting a rumor, that the 2 council members told someone that Beth’s son died. But you have no knowledge that is the case.
You have now taken an unsubstantiated statement and stated it as being true. That is rumor–exactly what you claim people should stop spreading.
Why would you so hypocritical?
Shea has claimed for years that Agran leaked news of her daughter’s arrest in 2000 to the media; the Irvine Tattler was a website founded on the basis of this claim. Mickadeit himself reported he could not verify it.
You guys have missed the words “likely” in the statement. And even at worst case, hold Shea to the same standard.
Looks like you are admitting that you are spreading a rumor; exactly the whine that you make in the blog post. I find you completely dishonest. If you had any guts you would say that you were wrong, but you won’t.
Not at all; it’s my opinion based on a number of factors that reasonably lead me to the conclusion. And if you had any guts, you’d post under your own name and not an alias.