The Rhino’s John Hammer weighs in on the N&R’s recent reporting on Sen. Trudy Wade. For those out of the loop, Hammer has long referred to the N&R as the TECN&R –The Eleven County Area News & Record — mocking of the paper’s commitment years ago to provide coverage of the 11-county Triad metro region. Of course that’s a joke now, although I’m seeing more Winston-Salem news in the N&R since Warren Buffett now owns both local papers of record.
Hammer writes:
With TECAN&R and state Sen. Trudy Wade, any pretense of the business side not controlling the news side has been completely thrown out the window. Last Thursday, April 11, the lead story on the front page with a banner headline was a report detailing a rumor about Wade that the newspaper itself may have started. The rumor was that Wade, from her seat in the state Senate in Raleigh, was going to reopen the White Street Landfill. TECAN&R didn’t go into how Wade was going to manage to force the City of Greensboro to dump its garbage at the landfill, but evidently TECAN&R believes that Wade, one of 50 state senators, has that power.
…But just to make sure that Wade got the message that she was going to be attacked relentlessly by TECAN&R, on Saturday, April 13, the lead editorial on the editorial page was about the rumor concerning Wade opening the White Street Landfill.
The article and editorial had little to do with the White Street Landfill, but have a lot to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue that TECAN&R stands to lose if Wade is successful in passing Senate Bill 387 that eliminates a law that virtually requires the City of Greensboro, Guilford County and other local units of the state government to buy ads from TECAN&R.
The N&R –especially former editor John Robinson —- loved to brag about how the news and editorial departments are completely separated. Which is why it was interesting to see the N&R’s lead editorial address the paper’s own article citing rumors that Wade was pushing legislation to somehow reopen the White Street landfill. The editorial justifies the lame reporting by stating that the rumors are fueled by the facts –namely the Republican majority in the General Assembly “that is asserting state authority over local governments in many ways.”
But the most bizarre N&R attack on Wade came freelance columnist David Noer. In his Sunday Ideas column, Noer justifiably criticizes the parents of the 9-year-old boy protesting outside Winston-Salem’s Green Street United Methodist Church for supporting same-sex marriage:
If we want our city, region and ultimately our nation to be populated by tolerant, responsible, compassionate adults, the most important thing we can do is become role models to our children when they are still young, malleable twigs. What we say, how we say it, what we praise, what we blame, how we respect and tolerate differences are potent twig-shaping tools. The folk-rock group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young said it clearly in their 1970 hit, “Teach Your Children.” The relevant lyrics were “Teach your children well … And, feed them on your dreams …”
Fair enough, but then Noer takes a strange turn when he says Wade’s bill to transform Guilford County Board of Education elections is a prime example of not teaching our children well:
State Sen. Trudy Wade has introduced legislation that would politicize our Guilford County school board elections. It would reduce terms from four to two years, require candidates to declare a party, and change district lines to conform with the most recent partisan gerrymandering.
While some of these changes may be positive and promote efficiency and responsiveness, shaping the direction and focus of our county school system to comply with partisan political philosophies is not compatible with teaching our children well.
So Noer wants parents to shae their kids values, but with help from the government where necessary. Sounds a little Melissa Harris-Perry to me.
It’s clear the N&R doesn’t care much for Wade, so don’t look for the pressure to let up, especially since she’s hitting them where it hurts —in the wallet.
