I get home from a week-long road trip wondering if I should even bother picking up the Sunday N&R to catch up on the local news. But I did and right there was a column from editor Jeff “Grits” Gauger. This oughta be good, I thought.
Gauger doesn’t disappoint—-not only does he write with a straight face that his paper’s new ‘partnership’ with Arts Greensboro covering the Gboro arts scene will not affect content or coverage, he also takes a swipe at his profession:
In the past, we newspaper journalists would have said “no way” to such an arrangement, and we probably would have been a tad holier-than-thou about it. I can hear the echoes even now: Sniff, sniff, nose in the air … “We don’t partner.”
It’s a new era, and with our new partner, ArtsGreensboro, we’re being appropriately creative — while also preserving the important values that gird journalism.
To ArtsGreensboro, thank you.
To which Arts Greensboro CEO Tom Philion replies Bravo News & Record!
Give me a break.
Semi-related: Wonder if former N&R editor John Robinson would go for this deal, considering he’s advising newspapers to drop the false equivalence and be transparent in their bias?
