Support from a surprise quarter
At lunch the other day — yes, bloggers sometimes get dressed and go out into public — the subject of the ailing news business, and specifically the News & Observer, came up. The conversation was notable for who attended the lunch, and what they said.
Who attended: A couple of local businessmen, both of whom previously worked in Washington on the staffs of Republican senators from North Carolina. Strong believers in private enterprise, skeptical of government and bureaucrats. Inclined to think that newspapers are generally captive to a liberal mindset.
What they said (paraphrased and compressed): Hey, we’re pulling for the N&O.
Thanks to its coverage of former Gov. Mike Easley’s questionable deals involving real estate, cars and air flights — as well as wife Mary Easley’s high-paying gig at N.C. State University — the N&O is relevant to them again. It once went unread for days at a time. Now they’re paying new attention, reading the N&O avidly and cheering its affliction of the politically comfortable.
I’ve had a similar reaction to the N&O’s newfound vigor. The irony is that reaction comes at exactly the time when I’ve decided to stop reading the print edition. I let my subscription to the paper lapse last month, and now only read the N&O online. That decision was part experiment and part protest. I want to see if it’s possible to keep up with local affairs exclusively through the Web. But I also wanted to make sure that not a penny of my money made its way into the hands of The McClatchy Co., the N&O’s owner (and a company so loathsome that it’s the subject of my next column in Business North Carolina magazine).
To my amazement, I’ve learned that I don’t miss the print edition very much. I’m a lifelong reader of comics, but I barely noticed they were gone. My need to have something to read at breakfast is fulfilled by the Wall Street Journal or whatever magazine is handy. If I want to know what’s on TV tonight, I go to channel 98 rather than the N&O’s listings. For news, I go online. So far, the quality of my life is unaffected by the absence of the print edition.
Funny how things unfold: At the very moment when a newspaper careerist is trying to break his addiction to newsprint, two members of the constituency most inclined to celebrate the media’s demise are instead celebrating its signs of life.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:24 am
The N&O covered up for Mike Nifong, John Edwards and the Easleys until there was no political liability for the Democrats for going after them. The pats on the back are unwarranted.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Welcome back Dan.
The N&O was late to the game of covering Mike Easley. They should have been doing this back when he was Governor instead of now after he’s gone. Better late than never, but the N&O bears some of the responsibility for the mess going undetected for so long.
I gave up on a N&O subscription months ago. I’m not a chump, I don’t pay for stuff they give away.
It is good to see your column again.
Walt
June 12th, 2009 at 7:45 am
If the NandO should want to do penance, it would report fully and accurately on the pending Duke Lacrosse lawsuits now pending in the courts.
But they won’t do that - they were part of the original combine that framed innocent men.
June 12th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Locomotive Breath and Walt are both right. The N&O has done a great job lately in my opinion, but where were they before the election?
The Easleys have been rotten a long time. They didn’t make a move until after Perdue and the usual suspects were safely entrenched.
And they held off until the National Enquirer had already exposed the Edwards until they reported on that. Poor Christensen is still trying to put perfume on those greedy and dishonest Edwards pigs.
Worse yet is their refusal to make right what they did in a deliberate way to boost the lacrosse hoax and give credibility to the crazy Duke 88 and Nifong. No, they won’t tell the truth about any of what they did.
If people from the lacrosse blogs and especially someone as brainy as the Diva leaves comments that are unquestionably relevant and pertinent to the subject matter, they try to silence those people.
There is already proof that some of the online editors erase anything that talks about the role the N&O played in the lacrosse case.
If they continue to do this kind of thing, people will just take the party somewhere else and their online will suffer just like their print coverage.
The Easleys, the Edwards, the Duke 88, and most of those who the N&O has always been in bed with are PIGS! PIGS who have finally been cut off from the public trough!
June 12th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Business North Carolina is a very good publication and I look forward to reading your work there!
The other part makes me kind of sad.
June 13th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Yeah I agree with the comments. Relevant it is, but late. As for the printed N&O, an online soduko never beats a paper one. Still I expect I’lll drop the print the next time money comes due.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:37 am
But…..you are saving trees, not having to recycle, and not getting ink on your fingers!
I’ve found that N&O’s online battles with WRAL.com for best, fastest news postings in the area. Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose!
Glad to see you back.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I’m still getting the print version of the N&O, even though I realize my subscription money is supporting the idiocy of the McClatchy bigwigs. The N&O has proven itself with the Easley investigation, but it did well on Frank Ballance, Meg Scott Phipps, Jim Black and (after a too-credulous start) the Nifong fiasco. (I loved it that one N&O commenter said “Who would have thought that appointing Mike Nifong would turn out NOT to be Easley’s biggest mistake!”) Persistent investigations like one into the Easleys’ shenanigans require well-funded, independent newspapers. I don’t think bloggers or Web sites or cable news has the resources or the determination to follow through on a long, slowly evolving story that is being blockaded at every point by powerful politicians. If you give up on print newspapers, you’re giving up on watchdog and investigative journalism.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
While it certainly would have been better to have uncovered the Easley stuff while he was still the sitting governor, I think it’s a little unfair to think it would have been possible to uncover this story back then. As has been reported as part of this coverage as well as other coverage, the Easley administration blocked the release of the documents that made reporting of this story possible. It wasn’t until he was gone that they received the information they requested well within the timeline the critics here expect. I think they deserve some credit for sticking with the reporting after all this time.