“America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men” –
Alexander Graham Bell
Words spoken long ago by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practical telephone, but that continue to ring true as we still see newspapers, the medium we should be able to place the most trust in for accurate and objective news, manipulating public opinion to fit some agenda favored by publishers or special interest groups favored by editors.
Day to day reports of auto accidents, women’s clubs, crime or obituaries may remain objective, for the most part, but politically this medium comes down solid on the left, in spite of claims otherwise.
Nowhere is this better seen than in Vancouver’s so called newspaper of record, the Columbian, or as I prefer to label them, the Lazy C for their lack of interest shown in digging for objectionable facts on Democrats while spewing an overbearing amount of hype against others, primarily Republicans.
And Republicans like David Madore and Don Benton don’t withhold any effort to cater to that effort, even though they know they are under the Lazy C microscope.
Hardly a day has gone by that you won’t find some derogatory mention of County Commissioners David Madore & Tom Mielke, labeled “the M&M Boys” in a pejorative sense by editor Lou Brancaccio or some sleaze claim made against State Senator Don Benton (R 17) by Stephanie Rice or others, either in print or on the pages of their All politics is local blog page online.
Be it blasting others in the Senate or frequent comments in public on facebook, both Benton and Madore continue to give the Lazy C all of the ammo they need to continue the little hate fest and even continue to sit down for taped interviews with them, interviews that end up cherry-picking words to smear both.
We see Brancaccio continue demanding the Benton be fired from his position as Head of the County Department of the Environment, claiming he is unfit and unqualified and not once giving credit for the good work he has done that has saved the county millions of dollars due to past actions by officials the Lazy C grants a pass to.
Think of the recent storm water runoff settlement of slightly over $3 Million that originally was slated to be in excess of $10 Million.
Other recent settlements in wrongful imprisonment from as far back as 20 years ago are being laid at the feet of the current Commissioners, primarily by commenters on the website that cling to every smear published by the Lazy C, with no correction.
After previously blasting those who frequently spoke publicly against the Columbia River Crossing light rail project, today they praise some that embarrass themselves with frequent parroting of the same thing over and over before the County Commission, City Council, C-Tran Board of Directors or the RTC.
It appears all one needs do is parrot the smears read in the editorial pages to gain favor with the Lazy C, witnessed by the Sunday, March 2, 2014 editorial; ‘Straight shooter’ Pollard stands at special intersection praising the recent outbursts of washed up, former Mayor of Vancouver, Royce Pollard.
Anybody recalling his terms in office could hardly agree he is a “straight shooter,” given his efforts to force citizens into accepting the CRC light rail extension of Portland’s financially troubled Maxline into Vancouver with a multi-Billion dollar bridge to carry it that would do absolutely nothing to relieve any congestion in the I-5 corridor.
That Pollard would not have permitted anybody to speak before city council as he has repeatedly spoken to County Commissioners is not considered, just so long as he shares in the Lazy C’s hatred of Benton, Madore and Mielke.
That Benton was one of the few Republican officials to support Pollard in the 2009 race he lost when current Mayor Tim ‘the Lair’ Leavitt lied his way into office is meaningless to Pollard or the Lazy C.
The vitriol Pollard spewed against Leavitt turned to praise as Leavitt pulled his flip-flop on supporting tolling the struggling middle class in Clark County to pay for Portland’s folly forced upon us.
And apparently that is all that is needed to gain credibility with the Lazy C, be willing to oppose middle class growth in the county as Pollard now does with opposition to the County Commissioners, that we overwhelmingly voted into office and his opposition to an oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver that would create numerous family wage jobs for the middle class, likely union jobs.
No, they would rather support an old vision left over from Pollard’s of a “Waterfront Project” that would place more tax burdens on the middle class that would likely see only minimum housekeeping jobs catering to an out of town wealthy.
Alternative News
So yes Vancouver, you not only need, but deserve a reliable and objective news source.
Commissioner Madore is claiming he is going to create such a source in 2014. On January 16, 2014 he posted on his public facebook page,
“2014 should mark the year when a new Clark County Media rises to fill the void. The vacuum will be filed with a credible relevant objective reliable professional news and information source that truly serves the citizens of our community. Stay tuned.”
I like David and think he is a truthful and honorable person, but he is a very busy person with his Commissioner cuties and his company, U.S. Digital, even though he hired someone to run it for him while in office. But we have heard this before from him at a September 2012 fundraiser;
But, in a recent one-hour interview with the Lazy C he stated Couv.com was merely an “experiment,” a “prototype,” something basically to “get his feet wet” so to speak.
In the meantime, although not newspapers, private blogs such as this one and Clark County Politics have been operating for several years at a cost of but pennies on the dollar of what others cost and providing balance to the liberal slant the Lazy C denies they operate under.
I have no idea just what Commissioner Madore has in mind and whether or not it will actually happen or even catch on, but in the meantime, lacking an objective news source with the Lazy C, private blogs will continue to fill the void until such time as a truly objective newspaper is operating in Southwest Washington.
