Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Invidious Comparisons

Maybe I should have been flattered to be singled out at Monday's council meeting as a "professional" among city bloggers for having previously been a reporter, but I think anyone who takes the time to sit through meetings and offer reports and/or commentary to the public is doing a great service.

Dan, Dr. Yood and David all have more professional education than I ever had. Dr. Yood has nearly a century of perspective on Plainfield. David has the modern video and recording skills that the rest of us lack. And most of all, among 30 bloggers that have come and gone over the past decade, we are still here.

The odd thing is that as a reporter for 16 years, I regularly caught hell from Plainfielders. Rick Taylor tried to get me fired on more than one occasion. I was told only a black reporter should cover Plainfield. Heck, at a church brunch, a resident tore into me because the Courier News dropped young people as carriers and began having adults deliver the paper overnight. The minister joked that he was going to make me an "off-duty" button to wear.

I got blamed for papers being thrown in the bushes and for the Courier News moving out of Plainfield. Once the uncle of a notorious murderer-rapist accosted me on Park Avenue to complain I hadn't given him credit for turning his nephew in to police.

Anyway, as a blogger I am just one of a hardy band that tries to let residents know what their elected and appointed representatives are doing (at least in public). Such coverage is largely a thing of the past in today's journalism world. Please take us as we are, and appreciate all  of us for our efforts while they last.

--Bernice

5 comments:

  1. we, the common public, do in fact appreciate all of your efforts.. it's the elected and appointed representatives who have an issue with the group of you letting us know what they do in public.. thank you all for helping to shine the light of public shame on the shameless

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  2. I concur with Rob.

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  3. I agree. If ever there was a majority voting block that needed oversight, this one is it. And you are among the best at providing unbiased oversight.

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  4. The truth hurts. Here's a suggestion. Council, do the right things! And the council president doesn't even respect the corporation council calling her legal opinion "a bunch of statements" when it came to the HAP railroading. She has shown her home training wasn't listened to. I'm sure she was not raised to be as rude as she is.

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  5. You have pissed people off, Bernice. You must be doing something right!

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