This week’s Rhino was focused on the election, so Troublemaker is the only Greensboro media outlet covering City Manager Mitchell Johnson’s sudden reversal on the infamous black book. A couple of days ago he got City Council member Mike Barber to go on record describing Johnson’s recent sworn statement on the black book as a “180 degree turnaround” that could end up costing taxpayers $750,000 in an EEOC settlement with black police officers.
What I find fascinating is the way Troublemaker is taunting the N&R. My gut reaction is to advise him to get off the N&R’s back and just keep reporting. I understand his sense of justice, because the N&R has to reconcile its earlier reporting stating the black book was a tool used by a “secret police” to target black officers. Troublemaker’s also convinced the N&R’s lack of coverage is tied to the city’s proposed purchase of the Canada Dry property, which would benefit editor John Robinson’s wife.
Indeed it’s easy for readers to shrug their shoulders and just say this is the same lack of government scrutiny we’ve been putting up with for some time. But it’s also clear that some public officials don’t feel like they have to address an issue until they read about it in the paper. I think the Hagan-Dole campaign is a perfect illustration of that. Bloggers were hammering away on Kay Hagan’s Godless PAC fundraiser for weeks, but Hagan didn’t address the issue (if you want to call it that) until Dole pushed the envelope with the controversial ad in the last week of the campaign.
If you read the N&R blogs, it was clear Hagan’s hometown paper of record had her ear. So maybe if the newspaper wrote a hard-hitting article or editorial on Hagan’s fundraising activities, the issue would have been addressed before the last week of the campaign, when so people had already cast their vote. But that didn’t happen, did it?
It’s the same thing here. City Council members might think they don’t seriously have to address the city manager’s flip-flop until they read it in the hometown paper of record, or at least until their constituents read it and start giving them an earful. But no one’s reading it in the paper, are they?
And this is exactly where the N&R fails its readers.
Update: Unlikely to get any better down on East Market Street.