Pat Powers provides an excellent example of spin by ellipsis as he takes a gratuitous swipe at the best darn university in South Dakota.
Powers cloaks his insult to South Dakota State University by framing it as merely a proud-papa mention of his daughter’s appearance in the campus newspaper. But the headline, phrasing, and highly selective cherry-picking of lines from the original source show that Pat’s real intent is to sensationalize a campus facilities incident and slime the great institution at which his daughter is earning her degree:
It’s impossible to tell from Pat’s blog post what actually happened. Pat’s headline makes it sound like the ground was opening up to swallow poor undergraduates whole. The quote he chooses at the end of his block makes it sound as if whatever unnamed danger erupted has been left unexplained and unchecked by uncaring university officials, imperiling our frightened sons and daughters as those godless liberal public universities are so wont to do.
As you would expect, the SDSU Collegian does a far better job of journalism than Powers. Let’s see what Powers left out about the catastrophe at Grove Hall… where some tiles came loose:
A Grove Hall classroom filled with students and their professor was disrupted Feb. 18 when rows of tiles abruptly started to rise up from the floor.
The Letterpress studio class was meeting at 7 p.m. when students began to hear a popping noise and felt vibrations under their feet.
…“The popping noise just kept getting louder,” said Powers. When she looked around the room more, that’s when she saw the tile cracking and rising up from the floor [Halen Groenske, “Tiles Come Loose in One of SDSU’s Oldest Buildings,” SDSU Collegian, 2021.03.02].
University police responded took immediate action:
University Police Department personnel were the first on scene and evacuated the building for further investigation [Groenske, 2021.03.02].
SDSU experts recognized pretty quickly what caused the floor to exfoliate:
“Pressure that’s built up in the tile floor just has to go somewhere,” Jonathan Meendering, project architect at South Dakota State University, said. “The tile is stronger than the mortar, so it popped up all the tiles.”
The incident happened because of old finishes and the cold weather causing differential movement of the tiles. Meendering said they looked over the original as-built drawings for the building.
“Going back to its original construction as a kitchen area with walk-in coolers, the subfloor in those areas is different under different areas because of where coolers used to be located,” he said.
Lightweight concrete blocks were installed above the concrete structure because lightweight concrete is a better insulator than solid concrete. The location where the tile popped up was where some of the lightweight concrete was first installed.
“It’s kind of reaching and has reached the end of its useful life,” Meendering said, regarding the tile floor. “Failures aren’t uncommon” [Groenske, 2021.03.02].
…inspected and determined the building still has good bones:
Meendering said when looking in the crawl space under Grove Hall, it was in good condition for a building that is 59 years old.
“I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the structure is in good shape,” he said [Groenske, 2021.03.02].
…and made a plan to fix this minor damage next week:
The tiles that cracked are set to be replaced over spring break, and Meendering plans to put in an expansion joint in the tiles that can take more movement. He also said there would be no significant hazards if this incident were to occur again.
“It’s a finish material, it has nothing to do with the integrity of the building and being able to hold things up,” he said. “So really there’s no danger other than you could trip over the tile” [Groenske, 2021.03.02].
I know: tile and grout and How cold was it in Brookings? aren’t nearly as exciting a story as, Holy crow! The room tore apart under my feet! But in his haste to sensationalize a weather and building issue, spinster Pat ignored the basic rules of journalism. Instead of giving us the basic what-when-where-and-why, he cherry-picked a story to replace all those w‘s with the one big w, his personal wish to make a fake stink about South Dakota State University.
Always good to see your kids in the paper, outside of the court section.
What if the headlines read your kid hit a pedestrian late at night on the shoulder of a highway while texting and exceeding the speed limit? Just asking.
Typical gibberish for the South Dakota GOP fearful government leaders to digest. Something BAD is always going to happen! Chicken Littles flock together and grift their way thru the government they can’t spend enough to join. Then, when they get into government, government is “BAD BAD BAD!” (but, ya know, WE know what’s good fr ya, just trust us, ok?!)
Magats have controlled South Deathkota for more decades than I care to remember. Infrastructure failing equals magat rulers failing. Lay the wreath of shame where it belongs…. at magats door.
Well thank goodness no other blog pulls selective lines from news stories to create salacious headlines.
And more importantly, grudznick is glad the young woman wasn’t harmed. We don’t need a litigious Mr. PP roaming the internets now, do we?
You misread the establishment attack RINO’s musing. This is his clumsy way of justifying pouring more funding into the abyss that is the Board of Regents. His sensationalism was a mating bellow to the RINOs in session.
DD, once again, you try too hard to hunt RINOs. A post propagandizing for more funding for SDSU would have highlighted the public employees’ quick work to instill confidence in their ability to spend more money effectively.
Mr. PP has never eaten lasagna with cottage cheese and had real ice cream in the Grove Commons back in the day when the Grove Commons was shiny and new. In those days, nobody had any idea they would shut down the breakfasting there. A travesty.
And I seriously doubt there was any “REAL” ,(not alternative reality) danger to anyone’s kids.
I am sure Mr. Mike, who is from Iowa not South Dakota State University, is righter than right here. The Grove, an old eatery for hungry young co-eds back in the day, is just fine with some more glue to slap those tiles back down. Do not let Mr. PP goad you all into a call for millions of dollars for the SDSU to build a new building or some other insanerism. A bucket of Gorilla Glue is all that is needed. And for George Lilley’s sake, when the heck will Mr. PP stop having kids going through the colleges?