No news is Bad News
I applaud Tara Servatius’ article bemoaning the shoddy reporting in the Charlotte Observer (“Paper Tiger,” by Tara Servatius, Jan. 18). When I moved here after living several years in Asheville, I looked forward to being able to read a “big city” newspaper that would make up for the years I was forced to ingest Gannett Corp’s sad little Asheville Citizen Times. I must say I was real disappointed.
As a partial solution to the lack of serious reporting, I direct Ms. Servatius, and the editors of CL, to the Mountain X-Press, Asheville’s weekly news and A&E paper — the small mountain-town version of Creative Loafing but with a much, much higher percentage of print space committed to hard news, including lengthy overviews of each week’s city and county government meetings and regular serious investigative journalism. Imagine a Creative Loafing with five or six folks doing the serious and good work Ms. Servatius does, and you get the picture.
Instead of waiting for the Observer to get it together, CL should pick up the ball and show them what real journalism is.
Nicholas Holt, Charlotte
I have to agree with Citizen Servatius when she tells us the Observer no longer reports the news. Their editorial policies seem reflective of the Chamber of Commerce and Center City Partners policy statements, not reporting. If someone is not in their good graces, you see words in their editorials such as “knuckle-headed,” “stupid” or “silly,” by which they make the effort to marginalize those they disagree with. News that would tell the truth about the dirty underbelly of Charlotte/Mecklenburg is not reported or is given short shrift. The Observer has become a cheerleader for the Chamber, ignoring the people while doing its best to feed us a diet of propaganda pretending to be truth.
Lewis Guignard, Charlotte
Why Downtown?
Re: “Strike One” by John Grooms (Boomer with Attitude, Jan. 18) and the uptown baseball plan — must everything go downtown? It’s unfair to put all resources into pumping up downtown while letting other areas turn to blight. How about bulldozing the Coliseum and building a baseball stadium there? Or Independence Arena? Businesses on that strip are moving further out, turning the area into a wasteland. City/county leaders should be using whatever funds they can to entice businesses to populate that part of town. Schools, housing, offices, etc., should fill the void left by big-box retailers and smaller businesses that have left. Unfortunately, I know the end of the story: Blight and crime will overtake the area. Five to 10 years later, gentrifiers will come in, snap up cheap real estate and build high-end housing. And I’ll wonder why the city didn’t do more to prevent the area from turning to crap in the first place.
Regarding naming a street after MLK: What would he say if he came around today? “Please, no more streets, schools and statues named for me. If you want to honor my memory, get up off your butt and make something of yourselves. Get educated. Whether you become a scientist or the scientist’s housekeeper, you’ll need education to become an informed, cultured citizen of the world who questions the pabulum fed you by the government and the lap-dog media. If you give a crap about furthering my cause, honor me with a living wage law, national health care, affordable housing, job creation, fair trade, and clean air and water, not a parade or full-page ad in the paper.”
Beverly Rice, Charlotte
Who cares about Democracy?
I’m surprised that Mrs. Woodard wants to register inmates, even if it’s legal (“In the Jailhouse Now,” by Karen Shugart, Jan. 18). Criminals are the people we don’t want making our laws or deciding who wins an election. I think don’t ask, don’t tell on ballots for inmates is fine. There are some people we don’t want participating with those of us who follow the law. In fact, I think the Sheriff’s Office is going too far in talking about inmate voting in orientation. It shouldn’t be discussed unless an inmate asks.
Kenny Houck, Pineville
This article appears in Feb 1-7, 2006.
