Journalism And Randolph County, North Carolina: "Damn It, Doctor Johnson, We Might As Well Be Reading Pravda!"

I am not home enough to hear a lot of the word-on-the-street, but even I do get to hear it.

And word-on-the-street is that Asheboro's more "ordinary" folk are SICK-AND-DAMNED-TIRED of the Courier Tribune being a unabashed bought-and-paid-for mouthpiece for "the right people".

These are the SAME right people who sat on ALL of the big-bad-boards in town (with minor variations) and whose conflicted interests and unabashed greed ran First National into the ground . . . the SAME "right people" who sneered & spit at medical ethics and allowed a home-grown Pediatrician-with-high-standards-and-mad-skills to be run-of-of-town on-a-rail because she did the right thing . . . the SAME "right people" who have determinedly played stupid and looked the other way despite KNOWING that the over-paid, over-rated executives who ran the Pediatrician out of town (the executives they are supposed to oversee) REPEATEDLY LIED to the Court and treated it (and ergo, we-the-schmucked-up-people) with whole-sale contempt. 

These are the same "right people" who shafted primary-care in order to built a gazillion-dollar cancer center the town didn't really need . . . the same "right people" who told us that alcohol would solve all of our economic problems in record speed . . . and the same "right people" who put Asheboro on Forbes list of "fastest dying towns" in 2008 (yet somehow gifted North Carolina with its current Commerce Secretary).

These "trying times" have landed on our collective hears largely because "the right people" FORGOT what REAL "small town values" were - or what a "community" was supposed to be about . . .

. . . and our hometown newspaper - supposedly our last best defense against public corruption - turned a BLIND EYE.

A good friend raised-in-Asheboro-but-no-longer-of-it called me this morning and railed against both our local dailies (citing a front-page N&R story that I cannot find a link to - which sang all about the down-home virtues of Asheboro's new ABC Store manager):

Damn it Doctor Johnson, Winston-Salem is getting over 500 manufacturing jobs courtesy of Catepillar.  The ABC store can bring Asheboro what . . . 4, maybe 5 jobs.  Yet the N&R will tell the *&^%$#@! manager's story, and treat you like dirt???  Who are these people kidding?  We might as well be reading Pravda!

(In defense of Pravda, these days, it seems to be better reading than the New York Times.)

Speaking of the NYT, as our local newspaper mops up for the "right people" and flat-out refuses to investigate or report a story of ongoing local corruption very relevant to our times . . . the Appleseed Project's recent event in Ramseur made the New York Times today.

I'm sure the locals who know about it are very proud . . .

. . . including Randolph County Sheriff, Maynard Reid, Jr. who apparently is TOO THICK to realize that Mattathias Schwartz's primary agenda was to portray Appleseed's members as dumb, ignorant, paranoid anti-government hicks - and denigrate anyone who might want to learn to shoot a gun.

(It's for sure the Sheriff's office isn't going to do anything but shield the perps.  As it happens, there isn't actually any justice here . . . even for murdered mailboxes.)

And Reid-Jr., who was quoted in the article (horrible syntax and all) . . . played right to it.  He might as well have tatooed "Bubber" (no offense to our Bubba) on all of our foreheads.

Dear God, PLEASE save us from the "right people"!