In the independent news world, we talk a lot about impact — how to define it, how to measure it, how to use it to inform our work and our revenue. Much of the Indy’s annual reader survey is dedicated to finding out whether and how readers use what they read from us to be more engaged in the community.
So I have to thank Athens City Council member Alan Swank, 4th Ward, for crediting the Independent with turning city residents against a proposal to allow Athens City Police Department to participate in a state drone program.
At Tuesday night’s council meeting, Alan read the first paragraph from our story about the Feb. 9 meeting where the proposal was introduced. The story started, “Athens’ participation in a state-paid, city police-controlled drone program for criminal surveillance purposes died in committee Monday evening.”
“If that isn’t an inflammatory opening statement, I don’t know what is,” he said during the meeting. He went on to blame the outpouring of opposition to the proposal on “misinformation.”
“Anybody who didn’t get past the first sentence of this article didn’t get the whole picture,” he said.
According to our website analytics, the story on the Feb. 9 council meeting (which Alan didn’t attend) was read by about 750 people in the six days from its publication to Tuesday. Those folks spent an average of 2 minutes and 10 seconds on the page — which indicates that they read a whole lot more than the headline and first paragraph.
Our Facebook post sharing that story was seen by 19,634 people in the same period, drawing 126 comments and 11 shares. More than 170 people clicked through to read the story online.
So OK, maybe it’s plausible that our story had an influence. Was that first paragraph wrong, though?
- “State-paid”: The Drones for First Responders Pilot Program is indeed a state-paid project. The city would have had to front $300,000 for the first two years, and the state would have reimbursed that cost. ✅
- “City police-controlled”: The Athens Police Department applied for the program, one of nine organizations chosen to participate in the pilot project. It is one of four police departments selected; the remaining five recipients are combined police/fire/EMS or solely fire or EMS. ✅
- “Criminal surveillance purposes”: While the Drones for First Responders Pilot Program website primarily touts drones’ potential uses in emergency situations, one of the stated uses is “Public Safety Incident Response.” The description states, “Drones can provide real-time visual information to enhance situational awareness.” Yes, this is just one use of the drone, but our emphasis on that point resulted from the focus of the council’s discussion. As we reported in our story, Michael Wood, 3rd Ward, voiced strong opposition to the proposal at the Feb. 9 meeting of the City and Safety Services Committee. Wood noted that “any police officer ‘worth his salt’ could create a reason to investigate a secondary matter that was not the initial reason for drone dispatch.” ✅
If we got anything wrong, it was saying that the issue died in committee. The City and Safety Services Committee didn’t advance the matter on Feb. 9, so the city brought it to the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday night. We were right at the time; guess we should’ve consulted our crystal ball before hitting “publish.”
Our mission is to empower community engagement. Community engagement includes attending public meetings, writing to officials, and taking action on issues. The City of Athens is fortunate to have a highly engaged citizenry that pays attention to what its government does — even if that attention is uncomfortable or unwanted. From who takes out the trash to housing vulnerable people, Athenians make their voices heard.
And if our coverage of government meetings plays a part in that, we’ve done our job. So thank you, Alan, for giving us credit for sparking action — but you can’t accuse us of being inflammatory or spreading misinformation simply for reporting the truth.
