EAG Tonedeafness on Public Relations

Months ago, Kyle drove up to Gladstone to get involved in the bargaining between the school and its teachers. He posted a YouTube video featuring a clueless schoolboard member who later took some abuse for playing ball with EAG.

He also did the same in Grand Rapids, a got a bunch of bad press there too. The WOOD-TV report labeled EAG as "anti-union." Finally a report that doesn't pussy foot around the plain truth.

Now Kyle has emailed his fans promising more of the same. I'm sure he thinks people fight to be the first to view whatever he comes up with, but he's dreaming.

His Gladstone video grabbed all of 2,864 views. Sounds like a lot until you look at just about anything else from Gladstone.

Like for example a video of highschool girls dancing in Lake Superior, on a golf course and in a cemetary.

Really. And the view count: 27,009. This is what grabs Gladstone's attention.

"Ok Go In Gladstone Dancing"

Birds of a Feather

“So if you hear someone pontificating that the Mackinac Center is biased, ask them to explain what their bias is.”—Lawrence Reed

The Mackinac Center gets tangled up in the EAG through blood ties (Kyle Olson’s brother) and philosophy. They also tag-team body slams against the MEA and MESSA quite regularly. So it wasn’t surprising that when the Oakland Press ran a softball editorial praising the Mac Center that Kyle (or one of the other alleged two EAG people) posted snide and snippy remarks in the reader comments under editorial.

Birds of a feather…

The Mackinac Center claims to be non-partisan and, given the above quote from Mr. Reed, claims to welcome dialog and discourse that debates that claim. But one of our members learned this past week that appears to be lip service.

In a public commentary forum at the Mackinac Center website, our member asked if the Center would consider publishing any positive stories about MESSA saving districts money—you know, the balanced stuff unbiased media should be interested in promoting; you know, the novel concept of giving all sides of a story.

Our member was asked to go for it by Jack McHugh. He did. Jack’s response was to cut a portion of the response, insert his last-word rebuttal that was at best a red herring, then shut our member out from further participating.

When our member then took Lawrence Reed at his written word and provided links to scholarly reviews of the Mackinac Center’s scholastic work by PhD s at the Great Lakes Center for Education and Research, Jack got busy with the delete key.

delete.

delete.

delete.

delete.

Actions do indeed speak louder than words. And birds of a feather do indeed flock together.

Oh, and those positive stories about MESSA? We would advise against looking for any to show up any time soon at the “unbiased” Mackinac Center (or at the EAG). But we’ll continue to ask the hard questions and provide substantive, public criticism of these entities.

Our good members—parents, teachers, taxpayers—don’t deserve the ambushes and the attacks that come from Kyle or others like him.