News-Record.com

Jeri is no doubt your best choice for such a project. Good luck.

A first step towards racial healing, which is part of the cure for "Greensboro disease" would be for the Civil Rights museum leadership to step down and hand over the project to civic organization with a proven track record of accomplishment.

13 years of procrastination, Millions in public monies donated with nothing to show for it but a few photograph murals on the outside of the building as well as a decade of excuses reported in the media for this failure has significantly polarized the community.

So far I like what I have read in Sunday's paper. You have apparently chosen the right reporter. Now if you and Allen Johnson just keep your biases out of it and let him write what he has learned perhaps it will be a beginning.

We who have been criticizing are not just nasty people Mr. Robinson. We are, and have been, criticizing because there has been much wrong to be critical of and no one has be listening as you seem to think. We have indeed been listening and simply not hearing the truth. People are not as stupid as some of our officials and powers that be in the city seem to think. We have just been trying to ignore what was going on in hopes that things would get better. But it has been years of status quo and how lovely everything is and how great is our leadership when things were being shovelled under the carpet. Greensboro's Disease did not just happen, it took years to develop. But it took some bloggers to start criticizing and a rival weekly newspaper to start printing a bit of the truth to get anyone to as you ask: listen.

I wish your series of articles much success and I do this for the sake of a lovely city full of fine people. Brenda Bowers

One other thing Mr. Robinson. I notice that mine is not one of your links. Is that because the unvarnished right up in your face truth from one who has been around and seen a lot too much for you? Funny how I am however quoted in your paper from time to time. Were you aware of that fact Sir? BB

I appreciate you reading intention into something that's simply neglect, BB. I'm afraid I don't read you so I wouldn't know about your unvarnished version of the truth. I'm happy to put you on the blogroll, though, if you send me the link.

I presume this blog is on YOUR blogroll, too?

Before any healing can begin, Mitchell Johnson has to go. He has caused so much division and anger there is NO Way he can stay.

In todays N&R column you refer to the mudslinging that began during the City Council primary. As a candidate in the primary it would be helpful to me if you provided some examples of mudslinging that you witnessed or heard. I assume you mean personal attacks on candidates by other candidates.

Until I read your column today I had not heard this charge from anyone else; as a matter of fact a number of friends, colleagues, fellow church members and others have been very complimentary about how well the campaign was run, regardless of the vote outcome.

During the campaign, the candidates attended numerous forums and other public events, and the discussion was always issue oriented. I never witnessed any mudslinging, but maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and missed the action. Hopefully you will enlighten me on this matter since you chose to reference it in your column.

Bill Knight

Mr. Knight I heard no mudslinging from any of the candidates either. The only mud slinging I have ever heard or read has come from this newspaper and some of it's reporters who were free with such mud as "secret police", "gestapo tactics", "racist black books" unfounded accusations of "mudslinging" and a few other such non-professional, biased and divisive commentary passed off as news reporting.

You and I Mr. Knight are really free to say what we wish and in any way that we desire because neither of us claims to be a journalist who are supposed to be held to a certain ethical standard for truthfulness. Strange then isn't it that we are the ones who hold on to these apparently elusive standards. Brenda Bowers

Mr. Wright, I was actually thinking more about what people were saying about candidates -- in letters and on blogs -- rather than the candidates themselves. Some of the candidate stuff -- thinking of Trudy Wade's ads -- came later.

Brenda, you should go back to whomever gave you that information and smack them. They are telling you things as if they are the truth when, in fact, they're fantasy. The phrases you say appeared in our paper never have, with the exception of "secret police," which, whether you like it or not, is phrasing that police officers gave us.

Thanks for your reply. By the way, it's Knight, not Wright.

Stupid me. My apologies. I had just sent an e-mail to a friend whose name is Wright.

Call me a skeptic. I boldly predict that the N&R prescription for "healing" will involve a healthy dose of government programs, excessive self-help terminology, ponderous invocations of Kum-bay-yah style multiculturalism, and the usual soft liberal utopianism. Melodrama, heart-wrenching stories (at least, to people with certain kinds of hearts), and prose shaded in Rowian purple will, if my prediction holds, be employed stylistically.

Explicitly eschewing "cold, hard facts" (of the sort that used to be important in a less therapeutic sort of journalism) in favor of a "point of view" does not make me optimistic. Saving the world eleven counties at a time (as someone might put it) does not strike me as the job of the press, especially its "news" section.

I'm not surprised by your prediction, brian444, with its presumptions and derision. You might want to reread what Jeri, Allen and I have written, though. We aren't trying to save the world. We aren't and won't be avoiding the facts, either.

We'll see what happens.

"Some people told Jeri that the news media has some culpability in how the community got to this place and that we have some responsibility to help move the community out. I agree."

I also agree with that statement John.
Can you be very specific as to how you agree with it?

Posted at Dr. Joe's:
Joe,
The News & Record markets racism to the Greensboro community as if it were a product from one of their sale flyers.
Isn't this article similar to the tobacco industry issuing a report on how to stop smoking?

Posted by: Tony Wilkins | December 10, 2007 at 10:57 AM

Also posted at Dr. Joe's:

"'The News & Record markets racism to the Greensboro community as if it were a product from one of their sale flyers.'

Witness their absurd coverage last year of the non-existent "hate crime" at Guilford College.

And yet all we get from someone like John Robinson is a "who, us?", and a ban on cerain posters to his blog.

Such is also the case with the politicos and the money/influence peddlers. They have MUCH to answer on questions regarding their behavior.

Yet WE are the people who "refuse to move on".

As if......"

Posted by: Bubba | December 10, 2007 at 12:15 PM

Bubba, I'd suggest that you actually read what was written and think it through. Then go back and correct what you wrote elsewhere. There's no "who, us?" sentiment in my column. Tony recognizes that I take responsibility.

I did ban one commenter for three whole days. He's back commenting. That's hardly what you assert.

I don't know what you're talking about you being accused of refusing to move on. Perhaps you are seeing yourself in that role. There's no reference to you or people refusing to move on in my writing or, I think, in Jeri's.

And finally, marketing racism....such an interesting phrase...was Jeri's piece racist in your eyes?

Tony, that's an entire column on its own that I'll get to.

Mr. Robinson, do you specifically defend your coverage of the Guilford County fight? IMO, that was a paradigmatic example of the paper's imposition of race melodrama on a matter that hardly warranted it. There was no evidence it was a hate crime, and no reason to report it unless it was. You did exactly what the broader press did with the Duke rape: jumped to conclusions, put a non-story on the front page for a week, and then silently dropped the whole matter.

I covered the Guilford COLLEGE fight.

The words "hate crime" were first used by the Palestinian students who claimed they were targeted for their race and were called racist names as they were beaten. The warrants themselves reflected this, which is why it was reported. It was reported prominently by all of the television and radio stations, as well - and by print outlets outside our coverage area.

In order to avoid reporting that I would actually have had to redact information that was at that point already public. I'm not in the business of censoring the information I report from public documents for any reason.

To my knowledge the Palestinian students have never recanted that claim either publicly or privately -- the two groups came to an agreement out of court, which we reported. Neither party talked about the details of that agreement publicly. We reported that. Then the story was over. No new developments. We didn't "silently drop" anything. We were the first to report the Palestinian students' claims and the first to have comment from the football players' families as well.

I was personally thanked by the families of two of the football players for going the extra mile (including breaking deadline to track them down and get their comments) in order to tell both sides of the story, even when the players were advised not to talk to the media. I have no regrets about how that story was reported.

We disagree. This story unfolded like virtually every high-profile crime story. Charges and counter-charges and more information as the story unfolds over the days and weeks. In this case, the victims filed a complaint and accused their attackers -- students at a Quaker college -- of a variety of things, including using racial epithets. They also called it a hate crime. Within a few days we raised questions, describing the situation as "cloudy concoction" in the first paragraph.

The FBI got involved in the case because of the racial angle. The school did its investigation. Eventually, weeks after the initial arrests, the students apologized to the victims and the charges were dropped. That story, as were many of the others, was published on A1.

I too have read Jeri's piece,John's explanation of it and Allens take also, and the conclusion I came up with is this is nothing more than some more of the same old yellow journalism that we have grow accustomed to by the News-Record.
Just by bringing up the TRC, Civil Rights Museum, Police Cheif firings,you display you true intentions. You don't want peace in the community for when there's peace and civility you have no news, when there is peace and civility you go out and drag up past events to fire up the public. No you only pretend to want peace yet you only report one side of the news.
All I know is I haven't forgotten what your yellow journalism did to Jack Perdue and how you all ran with your tails between your legs behind your corporate lawyers when the videos proved your reporter and your stories were false. So go ahead and sell your BS to the ignorant and fiddle as Nero did while Rome burned.

Your opinion about journalism is fine. But what you know about our reporting on Jack Perdue and how we responded are all wet.

To clarify, the reporting of the Guilford college incident was not, in my opinion, especially biased. The problem was the story's prominence. It was B6 news that made A1.

As I noted on Allen Johnson's blog a day or so into the story, this had every mark of your average college fight. But as soon as somebody says "race," you guys jumped on it like a fat kid on a cookie. Heck, you guys cover protests of your own paper's "racism." (You're consistent.) As I've said before, if a white dog attacked my black dog and I called race, I should expect to see the story on the front page of the N&R tomorrow morning. And I would be quoted, not "censored," because once my story is news, then what I say has to be reported.

Because the paper is so unselective in determining which stories have a legitimate racial angle--so eager, indeed, to ferret out racial angles--the effects over time become cumulative and pronounced. Instead of merely registering racial divisions, you exacerbate them by consistently (and IMO actively) reproducing them.

A comment by heelsluva was deleted because it contained profanity. This forum is for a discussion of journalism and ideas. Personal attacks and profanity, among other things, will get your comment deleted no matter how clever you think it is.

Thanks, brian. As we have noted many times here, we have a differing opinion of news. We would not, for instance, write about your dog fight.

This Jerry Rowe, is he not the one that wrote, they only kicked him in the head with sneakers?

Brian444: "The problem was the story's prominence. It was B6 news that made A1.
As I noted on Allen Johnson's blog a day or so into the story, this had every mark of your average college fight. But as soon as somebody says "race," you guys jumped on it like a fat kid on a cookie."

Exactly, hence my comment: "The News & Record markets racism to the Greensboro community as if it were a product from one of their sale flyers."

Brian444, under the current regime, they will NEVER, EVER get it.

JR, why not a "Voice at the Table" column asking, "Does the Greensboro News & Record help or hurt race relations in Greensboro?"

Forgot to fill in my name on above post.

What, you think that the blog comments here on this topic over the past year or so aren't enough, Tony?

I don't recall anything being as specific as what I suggest above.

What are you thinking the point is? What are you thinking would happen if, say, 20 people respond and most of them say we hurt? How the majority say we help?

I'm not sure I understand your question but the point would be to find out if the public believes your publication's perceived exaggeration and promotion of racial issues has harmed the community.
Does your question imply that it is irrelevant if you help or hurt the community as you just "report" the news as you interpret it?
I’m not one of those who always criticize your paper. I renewed my subscription based on the fact that I wanted to read MMB’s excellent local election coverage and I usually check the obituaries each day to make sure I’m not in there. As I used to look forward to the weddings section I have aged into looking at the 50th anniversaries feature.
Run the question unless you just don’t want to know the results or if the results really would not make a difference to you. Maybe I am the only one who feels this way.

The results wouldn't make a difference to me, Tony. What you're suggesting is that an unscientific survey of whomever decides to comment, whether they lived in Greensboro or not, whether they were anonymous or not, whether they even read the paper or not, make a difference on how we approach news items. Realistically speaking, we'd get 10-20 responses. No, I don't believe it would make much difference.

If most of them said the News & Record helps the community, would that make a difference to you? I'm thinking that you would still believe what you believe. And why shouldn't you? Everyone reads the paper through their own experiences.

I don't see the point. You and others believe that our news report hurts the community. It is what it is. I don't believe that I or a survey is going to change your mind about it.

Well, I agree that an unscientific survey wouldn't prove much. But the whole "Greensboro Disease and Cure" series isn't very scientific either. It will select rather rigorously for people who believe in the premise of the series--that Greensboro is wounded or sick for whatever reason--and who will (graciously) offer cures for it (or, alternatively, just complain).

I doubt you'll see represented what would surely emerge in a scientific sample: people like me (and the former mayor) who think that Greensboro is a nice place to live, pretty normally dysfunctional, and not in need of special therapeutic interventions that will end up being, in any event, mostly vague incantations that we need to "do something." (Witness today's installment that we need to "do something" about young professionals leaving town.)

In other words, you'll select unscientifically for grumpy 20-somethings with urban-chic pretensions and disregard the contented 30-somethings who, according to your unscientific stereotype, find Greensboro to be a "nice place to raise a family." Thus, your premise is reproduced as an outcome, and happy-go-lucky Greensborians like me are, once again, censoriously disregarded by big media.

And we end up where we always end up, brian: disagreeing over what is news. (Although I always enjoy your explanations of our motives and your predictions of what we will do.)

At the end of the day (sorry, just had to insert the "buzz-word" statement de jour) these blogs represent the opinions of an almost infinitesimal portion of the Guilford County public. Statistically insignificant is another term that comes to mind.
A couple dozen commenters populate these pages. That's it. Our county has a population of over 400,000. We who have nothing better to do actually express the opinions of many others, but we are a tiny, tiny fraction of the "public."
I fear we sometimes take ourselves too seriously, and I fear the N&R sometimes takes our input too seriously. We are but a small, small group that gather to discuss issues of interest. Sometimes those issues are intense (to us, at least) and sometimes they aren't.
But do we (blog contributors) really represent the "public at large?" Should the N&R (or any other organization which serves the public) use blogs such as this to guide their operations?
I think not.
Alas, I'm also guilty of sometimes believing my voice is representative of a large segment of county residents, but I have no idea if it really is or not.
Mr. Robinson, don't take us too seriously. Often we don't take you seriously at all.

Rest assured, jc, I don't.

"Bubba, I'd suggest that you actually read what was written and think it through."

I would suggest you do the same thing.