Not you, too, Luther
Yesterday, I decided to give Luther Falls Jr. a call while I was writing a story about the recall campaign against Greensboro City Councilwoman T. Dianne Bellamy-Small. Falls, you might remember, ran against Bellamy-Small in 2005 and lost by only 50 votes. There’s some talk he might run again. Falls will make an announcement about that in a few weeks, he said.
And Bellamy-Small, you might also recall, will only communicate with the News & Record via fax machine. And most times that doesn’t get us anywhere.
Anyway, Falls and I had a roughly 10-minute-long conversation Tuesday about what he believes is poor performance by Bellamy-Small. A portion of that interview made it into the article.
Earlier today, Falls told me on the telephone that if I don’t quote him in his entirety, he will no longer communicate with me.
I told him I couldn’t make that promise. The story in today’s paper wasn’t so much about him as it was the effort to have Bellamy-Small recalled. I also said there would be few, if any, times where I quoted everything he said to me in an interview – mostly because I'm a reporter, not a stenographer. We include the clearest, most interesting parts of interviews. And besides, not everything said by the people we interview is newsworthy.
My guess is Falls will come around come campaign season.
