I had to shake my head reading
Bill White's column yesterday. While I often criticize Bill for wasting his bully pulpit on grammar and his reoccurring themes, it's actually better than the revisionism he bestowed upon the Morning Call yesterday. He wrote, "
The Morning Call has focused attention over the years on practices that hinted at pay to play, but those revelations never generated enough heat to trigger legislation or internal reforms." That's news to me Bill, although I realize that the paper has now ended its eight year honeymoon with Pawlowski, that only occurred after the recent FBI raid. By my scorecard, you would have to cite examples of these
revelations about pay to play you claim the paper made. Up to recent events, the paper took everything from the Pawlowski Administration at face value. In reality, the paper, and pardon me for saying, you in particular, were cheerleaders, especially for the NIZ. You even called me
misguided for suggesting that the NIZ was a plan based on layers of inequity: Inequitable to most of the existing businesses in the valley, and segregating against the residents of center city. Although you now write that "
Time is running out for politics as usual," most of the few local political mavericks have ended up in your Hall Of Shame. If your memory lapses continue, you might want to see your physician.
above reprinted from August 28, 2015
ADDENDUM APRIL 25, 2022:Over the years numerous personnel at the Morning Call took a buyout, including Bill White. About a year ago, he persuaded the editor/publisher(Mike Miorelli) to give him back two columns a month. Although he's still certainly no Bernstein/Woodward, he has recently written a couple of pieces beyond his previous MO of chocolate cake contests and Christmas lights. Perhaps my insults inspired him. However, I still will allow no former Morning Call reporter to claim that the newspaper ever broke anything critical of any level of local government. On the contrary, they still turn their back on controversy.
So the only flaw in your original post was that by the time it was written (2015), Pawlowski had been in office for a decade. So I would have called call it a 10-year honeymoon, not the eight year length you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteAs to your current comment about the Call continuing to ignore controversy (at least for local democrat politicians), I'd say you are correct.
The Call seems to have no issue that Ed Hozza, appointed by the County Executive to the number two position in the county, accepted the role of Democrat Party Chairperson shortly after starting his taxpayer-paid county job several years ago.
To me, that's a problem, and you would think with all the controversies over elections (both national and local), the last thing you'd want anywhere close to the county elections office would be the top party official from either party.
But the Call has chosen to turn a blind eye to that issue, and I doubt if most Call readers are even aware of it. So the Call's true legacy grows.
The usual response by the media when things are too hot to cover up is we need reform or more legislations and maybe even spending more money.
ReplyDeleteMost of the problems are already covered by existing law. Our border crisis is just one example, no reform needed, just do your constitutional duty.
The press is not longer in the business of being any eye for public corruption, just facilitators of the corruption.