Sorry, Wrong Number!

Lynde Point Lighthouse

Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse

Earlier this year, a number of lighthouses were made available for "adoption" by the U. S. federal government, (See earlier post titled "Wanna Buy a Lighthouse?"). Among the available lighthouses was Saybrook Breakwater in Old Saybrook, CT.

This may be hard to believe, but an article which appeared Sept. 19th in Guilford, Ct.'s Shoreline Times makes light of the fact that the government may have made a mistake in adding the wrong lighthouse to the list!

Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse is only about a mile and a half away from Lynde Point Lighthouse. Unlike Lynde Point, which can be easily accessed by the public, Saybrook Breakwater is at the end of a large rock pier which must be accessed through private land. The only other access to the lighthouse is by boat.

What seems like a case of a "normal" government SNAFU, an employee of the Boston office of the General Services Administration, (the government agency which decides which lighthouses to divest each year), visited the area of the two lighthouses. Although the lighthouses look nothing like each other, (see above photos), the employee allegedly confused the two and posted the wrong lighthouse on the expendable list.

What happens now is unclear. Although the Board of Selectmen in the town of Saybrook is exploring the option of acquiring Saybrook Breakwater should the feds still want to make it expendable, the town's attorney has advised the Board against such an acquisition, stating problems with public access insurance and the estimated astronomical cost of removing hazardous material within the lighthouse and restoring it.

As for the Lynde Point Lighthouse, the GSA would have to begin the divestiture process all over again, according to the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000.

The Most Lighthouses?

Earlier this summer in a story from Madison, WI's The Capital Times, Mary Bergin wrote about Door County, WI's lighthouses. According to the story, the cities of Racine and Sturgeon Bay were conducting a contest for local artists. Nearly 100 miniature lighthouses were decorated at the whim of the artists and placed throughout the two cities as a tourist attraction.
Within the story, Ms. Bergin casually comments that Door County has more lighthouses than any other county in the nation. This is a false claim which has been spread by Door County, itself, for a number of years and has been irresponsibly echoed by a number of tourist sites throughout the region.
According to Door County, their 10 lighthouses are more than any other county's grand total. Upon reading her article, I took exception to this misstatement, (see comments section at the bottom of the story, provided by the previous link), and brought to her attention that Barnstable County Ma., (which is essentially Cape Cod), has 15 Lighthouses, itself, and makes the Door County claim false.
My comment was posted on July 28th, and though it remained on the web page, no acknowledgement was ever made to me or anyone at The Cape Cod Store.com. It was nearly forgotten, passed off by me as just the usual attempt of a tourist area newspaper doing anything to promote its area, until this past weekend when, among our regular web news updates, we received one which included a follow-up story to Ms. Bergin's previous article.
It seems my comment may have struck a chord, as Ms. Bergin's new article focused on whether or not Door County's claim of having the most lighthouses was really factual.
Although my comment was alluded to in the follow-up article, and I commend Ms. Bergin for seeking the truth, I do take umbrage in how, as a journalist, she went about that.
The first rule of journalism is "get the facts correct". Obviously, in her initial article, she didn't ever think to check on Door County's claim, only to mimic the status quo of their claims, and jump on the county's coattails, as a number of other tourist sites have done. Having had it brought to her attention that the claim was incorrect, you would think that she would attempt to contact the person who has taken her to task, especially one with credentials such as was posted, "Roland Babineau, editor, The Cape Cod Store.com's Lighthouse Encyclopedia". Not only did Ms. Bergin not attempt to contact me, even though my contact info was left at the time I posted my comment, but she also made no attempt to contact anyone at The Cape Cod Store.com.
Now, that may not be a big deal, but if she's going to take the time to research whether or not the claim is true, shouldn't she interview someone other than just the local executive director of the Door County Maritime Museum to get another perspective? Although Executive Director Brian Kelsey admitted that Door County didn't have the most lighthouses, it seems to me that Ms. Bergin didn't use all the information available to her to form the story, she just took the short road and interviewed her local museum director.
If not contacting me for more info on my comment, at least interview any number of other experts on the lighthouse subject, (Terry Pepper, of the (Great Lakes Lighthouse Keeper's Association), or Tim Harrison, Bob Trapani, or Jeremy D'Entremont, (all of the American Lighthouse Foundation), quickly come to mind), who could have given her even more input than most of us in the field. It just seems to me that she could have tried harder and really made an impact with her story, (or perhaps real journalism would be detrimental to a Wisconsin newspaper telling the absolute truth about Door County, Wisconsin, tourist attraction).
Not only did Ms. Bergin not try to contact us here, it appears she didn't even bother to see what The Cape Cod Store.com's Lighthouse Encyclopedia even is. If she had done her research, she would have quickly seen that the Lighthouse Encyclopedia isn't a "product" of the Cape Cod Store.com, as she wrote. It is a free reference site with information, photos, history, and links to other websites containing information about each U. S. lighthouse, not something we sell, as she intimates.
As I stated earlier, I commend Ms. Bergin on her attempt at getting to the truth, but I wish she really would do a better job of "doing her homework".