NC Journal Does Redevelopment
The North Coast Journal's cover story this week deals with the County Redevelopment Agency's plans and its critics. Good job. I think they do some real good reporting in that paper. I feel even less comfortable about these redevelopment plans after reading the story. I tended to agree more with the critics and found the proponent's arguments troubling, although I'm not sure I could say just why I found them so troubling. I guess it's something along the line of the proponents dismissing the critic's concerns and what seems to be a, "we're doing this whether you like it or not because we know what's best for you...", attitude. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you're doing something to me for my own good, please stop!
Only thing that was missing from the story was any quotes or comments from me. I'm sure they visit my blog now and then. Doesn't anyone who's anyone come here to read my hard hitting commentary on the issues of the day? Apparently not. :-(
posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:13 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Au contraire, Fred! Not that I'm necessarily "anyone," but you're a regular stop in my daily spin around the web.
--Hank Sims, NCJ Editor
Wow. How cool! I feel better now. Maybe my blog will get a mention, someday, when the NCJ does a story on local blogs? I'LL BE FAMOUS!
PS: It sure is humiliating for me, the owner of this blog, to have to use that word verification thing to post my own comments.
Thanks for the kind words about the Journal, by the way. I thought you blogger types were supposed to scorn the "MSM"!
You should feel lucky that the word verification thingy -- the "Captcha," I believe it's called -- is all the authentication you have to do.
In the post-R. Trent Williams era, we dinosaurs of print media are running ourselves ragged with our correspondents: phonecalls, IP addresses, DNA tests...
--Hank
MSM???
As far as verifying letter writers, that all the papers are all caught up in now, seems to me the papers are taking this a bit too far.
Sure, maybe they should make an attempt to verify letters. But I don't see a problem if it's not too controversial of a letter, or, if the letter is consistent with a regular writer's views. I'm not sure how familiar the Times Standard is with me but, if I sent in a letter saying how great the Libertarian Party is, it wouldn't even warrant calling me up to see if I wrote it.
If it was something real controversial like say, past Republican Chair, Mike Harvey, writing in and saying he's quitting the Republicans and switching to some other party, that would certainly merit looking into. Or, as I alluded to earlier, someone writing in, claiming to be an office worker in a medical office and then running that office down, THAT should certainly be verified. But a lot of letters don't really need a full investigation into their authenticity.
I know things are changing now, but some papers always verify letters with a phone call, some never do. The LA Times, SF Chronicle and the Tri City Triplicate always called me every time they ran one of my letters.
The Times Standard, NC Journal, Eureka Reporter, SF Examiner, SR Press Democrat, Ukiah Daily Journal and New York Post have never called when they've published my letters. Actually, the Eureka Reporter did call last time I sent one in and that was before the Salzman affair broke out. They didn't call for the one or two I sent in earlier, though.
As an aside, when the papers don't verify letters, you often don't know if they ever published them unless it's a paper you read regularly. The letters I had published in the NY Post and SF Examiner I discovered by doing a Yahoo search of my own name. A whole bunch of web pages came up including two from the papers that had my letters to the editor on them. A pleasant surprise.
Ahhh, but I've digressed. Refresh my memory: MSM?
Mainstream media.
Oh, scorn the mainstream media? I don't know about that since libertarians tend to be a pretty diverse group. It would be hard to say all of them are scornful of msm. As for myself, my main complaint would be that msm often seems to present a pretty simplistic, black/ white view of things. But, perhaps that's a pretty simplistic view in and of itself?
Fred, thanks for the kind words re: my redev story. Now that Hank has steered me to your blog, I have it bookmarked and will check in again.
Regarding the word verification, I'm pretty sure the purpose is not to filter out fake opinions -- it won't really do that -- it's to stop computerized robotic spammers from using your comment area to pitch fake Rolex watches, stock tips and porn sites. -- Bob Doran
Oh, I know that. Besides, if I was worried phoney opinions or some such I wouldn't allow anonymous posting of comments. The reason I started using the word verification was exactly because of the spambots posting commercial messages in my comments. I'd started getting a flurry of them. It all started off with one guy posting over 20 commercial spam comments to my blog. So many I just ended up deleting the whole post since it took so long to delete each comment. I see other blogs are getting hit by the spammers, too, and a lot are starting to use the word verification as well.
as usual the neoliberal crap-slingers at the journal miss the bigger story -- how redevelopment has been used in arcata and eureka to funnel money into rich peoples pockets at the expense of needed neighborhood improvements
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