OK, I was going to let this go, but turns out I’m not the only one to notice this interesting tidbit in the N&R’s write-up of the heated discussion between the Greensboro City Council and International Civil Rights Museum leaders:
It got off to a bad start when a reporter from the Rhino Times showed up — the News & Record wasn’t in attendance — launching museum officials and council members into a debate about whether the meeting was public.
I was going to assume that the N&R was late to the meeting –just as they were apparently late to Department of Social Services board meeting that resulted in director Robert Williams’ resignation:
About 10 minutes after the board went into closed session, a woman arrived at the door and taped a piece of paper over the door window of the small conference room to keep anyone from seeing inside the room. The closed session was held on the third floor of the building.
Shortly before 9 a.m., Guilford County Security Director Jeff Fowler told the Rhino Times reporter – the only reporter there – to move farther away from the door since the Rhino was “within earshot.”
Admittedly the Rhino wasn’t on top of the county’s food stamp backlog—- usually when you read a big county government story in the N&R on Friday or Saturday you read it first in Thursday’s Rhino. And it is possible the reporters were simply late to the meetings — no reason to rush, since they do go on forever. But once again it looks like our local paper of record has ceded reporting of two hot-button issues to the local weekly. Yes, it may seem like I go out of my way to criticize the N&R, but most of the time opportunites just drop into my lap.
