Gov. Mike Easley said newspapers should be nice to him.The News and Observer naturally disagrees with his assessment and recounts their efforts to expose a failing probation system and his denials of any problems even as they had exposed close to 600 cases of probationers who have killed in the last eight years as well as how the system has lost track of thousands of prisoners.
In an interview with the Greensboro News & Record, Easley complained about how newspapers, particularly The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, have treated him. Both papers are owned by Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy Co.
"My job is to be nice to other people, and their job is to be nice to me. Just because they're not doing theirs doesn't mean I shouldn't do mine," Easley said in audio of the interview posted on The News & Record's Web site on Christmas Day.
Perhaps Easley has no hope of higher office and that is why he feels free to express such a fatuity as that the role of the press is to be nice to him. Even though the N & O has been a Democratic paper since its use by owner Josephus Daniels as a Democratic Party house organ, it has attempted to be more neutral, especially since McClatchey Papers bought it. While I can't remember it ever endorsing a Republican for any public office, it still would not recognize its role as needing to be nice to the Democratic governor.
3 comments:
This is breathtaking! Not surprising, but what the left thinks that the press' role should be. Mouthpieces of their policies. BTW, McClatchy is a very left-wing outfit itself, but will try to be less overt than its ownership is.
I find it odd that Easley thinks his "job is to be nice to other people." Is that why he was elected? Is the governorship so defined in the state constitution? Should the nicest candidate win?
If he's right, couldn't the governorship be adequately filled by most average kindergarten teachers? (Which, come to think of it and given politicians and such, might not be a totally bad idea.a)
Considering that the McClatchy chain has decided to follow the precepts of news reporting ala Keith Olbermann then finding them criticizing a Democratic governor seems like acknowledging that the world has stopped rotating. I am expecting locusts and Mormons next.
Post a Comment