What’s up with the Observer’s coverage of Mayor Anthony Foxx’s swearing-in yesterday? I always hesitate before writing “inside baseball” critiques of the daily newspaper — it can seem petty, and readers generally don’t care about how papers are put together — but in this case, damn!
An explanation: Foxx was sworn in yesterday as the first new mayor we’ve had in 14 years, the first Democrat in 22 years, and only the second African-American mayor the city’s ever had. That’s a big page-one story, right? Not in the mayor’s own city it isn’t, no. Would you believe the bottom left corner of page 2 of the local section? Huh?! Yeah, there’s a photo of Foxx on the paper’s front page, but to get any information about Foxx’s swearing in, you have to hunt for it a couple of pages before the obituaries. Now, you tell me: which story is more important — a guy in Gastonia who’s been charged with murder (which is the lead story on the front of the local section), or Charlotte getting a new mayor? Hell, even the story on moonshine sellers in a daycare center got more play than the new mayor. I know they’ve had brutal staff cuts at the Big O, but, again, damn!
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2009.
Charlotte mayors have very little power and are basically council people with a touch more responsibilities. This is Obama getting sworn in. There are many more gripes against the Observer I can see than where they place the swearing in of a mayor.
This is NOT Obama getting sworn in I meant to say.
Yep, and lefty it is so just get the hell over it. Either way we win and you lose. So you and your glen beck whores can go straight to hell.
You wish. Democrats are here and we won, and will keep on winning. You are now the minority Frank/Luke/whatever else you go under for propaganda. God bless Anthony Foxx. Maybe patty mccrary can move in with frank griffin now that he’s been defeated. You can be sore losers together.