I’m not really sure what to make of Lorraine Ahearn’s ‘final column’ in this morning’s N&R. I kept looking for some sign that she was mocking the newsroom culture down on East Market Street, but I think she was dead —(get it —– she got her start writing obituaries) serious.
And haven’t some of us been saying for a while now that the N&R’s coverage of local government rests entirely in its “collective imagination?”
Our editor, John Robinson, a man with the patience of a saint, finally gave up trying to explain to our past mayor and our past chairman of the county commissioners that the News & Record reserved the right, under the First Amendment and the Articles of Satire, to print transcripts of public meetings that never took place, except in our collective imagination.
But supposing they had taken place? What if indeed we did have a Mayor’s Task Force on Fun? Or the commissioners had squabbled over pizza toppings in a meeting broadcast on Channel 13?
I also find it interesting that Ahearn announces that she’s now a tough investigative reporter with what could pass as a public relations piece for the City of Greensboro. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with, but expectations aren’t high.
