"Given claims the city wanted to forcibly disperse celebrants with 'pressurized water...'"

Dirk, it's disingenuous to keep reporting something that only existed briefly in the fevered imaginations of some in FoLT. At no point was anyone actually suggesting turning hoses on people.

The standard of reporting shouldn't be "what some crazy people think they heard" (i.e. "claims").

Colin: You're right it was never a legitimate possibility. That's what I've reported since the get-go. However, the notion was put out there by the volunteer organizers of the event and clearly a certain segment of people were incensed by it. I even heard people discussing it while walking through the event. There were claims, and they held at least some weight, which is why I mention them.

Just fucking end this thing already.

My claim is that the city was planning on dispersing the crowd with robot-zombie-dogs at exactly 9:48 pm. Why don't you start printing that instead?

Given the claims by some that Dirk likes to hump donkeys, Thursday night appeared to be thankfully free of donkey-humping at the VanderHart household, but no reports were yet in on Friday morning. Some claim that he may be humping donkeys as we speak, but note that these reports are quasi-unconfirmed at this time, but may be later.

Just shut Last Thursday down forever. Now.

Pass an ordinance allowing the city to lien commercial properties for costs incurred for street fairs. Once the landlords face risks, FOLT will come up with a funding plan.

And Blabby, sources say goats residing within a mile of the VanderHart residence are unusually agitated this Friday afternoon.

Here's how news works: A group running a public event makes an outrageous public claim casting the city government they're negotiating with as brutal—1963 Alabama brutal, even. Is that claim true? No. Clearly. Is it still newsworthy the group said it, and that it infected, nonetheless, the discourse around an event that's already frayed relationships? Yes. Do people curious about the situation now know one group in the debate is prone to uttering flights of fancy that might hurt their cause? Yes. Is it our job to print the newsworthy things people say? Yes.

Dennis, with all due respect, that's precisely how news (and government for that matter) DOESN'T work.

@Denis: By not qualifying the 'claims' in any way, Dirk was helping to substantiate them. Your argument is essentially the same argument used by TV news to have NOM debate gay rights, that they need to balance things and that it's newsworthy.

This piece clearly fell flat on just how and why this claim was newsworthy; it should either have been cut or expanded on.

@ Denis, I admire you going to bat there, but I agree with Graham. I would have kept my trap shut if Dirk had indicated in some way that those claims were ridiculous, but it lent legitimacy to an illegitimate claim to merely breezily repeat it.