Podcast: Saranac Hale Spencer and Andrew Schotz, Enterprise alumni on the current state of journalism

Saranac Hale Spencer and Andrew Schotz

 

Andrew Schotz and Saranac Hale Spencer each started careers in journalism at The Altamont Enterprise. Schotz has gone on to report for and later edit a variety of publications in Maryland — daily and weekly newspapers, both family-owned and part of a chain, as well as an online news site. Spencer covered courts for The Legal Intelligencer in Philadelphia, then covered crime and education for The News Journal, a Gannett daily in Delaware, and now works for factcheck.org, monitoring the accuracy of what is said by major political players in the United States. In this week’s podcast, they discuss the challenges of finding truth in an era of “alternative facts,” hostility toward the press, and shrinking newsroom budgets.

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  • Former Berne Town Board member Joel Willsey, who has long scrutinized that town’s highway practices, has discovered that the state’s official document-retention schedule is at odds with state law, allowing towns to discard notices after just one year instead of the five required by law. 

  • Anthony Esposito, who lost his house along State Route 145 in Rensselaerville when an SUV crashed into it, setting it on fire, said he had made several requests for guide rails because he had long been concerned about cars coming off the road. The New York State Department of Transportation said that it has no record of any requests.

  • Veterinarians are being asked to submit samples from potentially affected cows to Cornell’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center, which is sequencing the virus to determine how it spreads and ways to prevent it. 

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