I recently saw former Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday giving ‘exit interview’ on Greensboro Community Television. Despite the fact that he made himself very accessible to local media throughout his terms as mayor, Holliday was never shy about expressing his disdain for the media, believing that they had indeed shifted from just reporting the facts to editorializing in “hard news” stories. In the process of making his case, Holliday cited all three of Greensboro’s newspapers — the N&R, the Rhino and Yes! Weekly.

The N&R? Well, it’s the N&R. Though I’ve cited examples of subtle editorializing in its hard news stories, our local paper of record seems to have shifted more to a role of community activism and formulating public policy. The N&R will continue to pursue that role, as this lead editorial clearly states. Give them credit for coming out and saying so, I guess.

As for the alt-weeklies, the Rhino blatantly inserts opinion into its hard news stories and makes no apologies. Then there’s Yes! Weekly, definitely a left-leaning publication that has done some good hard news reporting. But check out this article on Guilford Technical Community College and the illegal immigration debate and tell me it doesn’t read more like an opinion column than a hard news story.

At any rate, if there are things Keith Holliday will miss about being mayor, reading his name in the paper probably won’t be one of them.