Les Merritt Heads Up New Puppetshow Arm
Submitted by scharrison on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 1:00pm
I know that many of us worked towards achieving less Merritt, and for a while it seemed like we might actually have accomplished no Merritt. But alas, that is not to be:
In downtown Raleigh - just down the street from the State Capitol - a new watchdog group is working to expose government corruption. It's called the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service.
"We believe this could be a significant complement to counter public corruption, which I do believe is growing," offered Frank Perry.
Perry spent 22 years with the FBI and ran the Raleigh Bureau office in the years after the September 11 attacks. Most recently, he worked for the State Ethics Commission and the State Auditor's Office.
Now, he's joining forces with former State Auditor Les Merritt in creating the foundation.
Before I get into the details of this new entity, I have a few words of advice for our local media. You have a choice: you can engage in investigative journalism, or you can be a public relations pawn. It took me like five minutes to figure out who is behind this foundation, and by not mentioning this in your article, ABC Local has shown they either a) aren't aware of the Art Pope network, b) are aware but don't know how to make connections, or c) understood the connection but chose to not report it. Here's a clue: none of these options are stellar recommendations for professional journalists.
From the Foundation's Facebook page:
We are a non-partisan, non-profit organization that offers citizens the opportunity to anonymously and securely report allegations of corruption by public officials through our Web site, ReportPublicCorruption.org.
Additional note to journalists: when an organization claims to be "non-partisan", you don't smile and say, "That's nice!", you sink your teeth in deeper and growl a little bit. And when an organization files as a "non-profit", it very often means they are trying to hide their funding, which 501(c)(3) accomplishes very nicely. It also allows members of an organization to say things like:
"Agencies, to include the media, need some intake mechanism, to vet, unpack, scrub, the good credible allegations from those that lack substance," offered Perry.
He said the foundation is getting its funding from bi-partisan sources from across the country.
"We have to be careful. We have to be fair. We have to be absolutely non-partisan," he said.
Gee, I don't know, Frank. When one of your five Board of Directors members is Kory Swanson, the Executive Vice President of the John Locke Foundation, and one of your two (so far) Journalism Advisory Committee members is Don Carrington, another JLF Vice President and frequent spewer of right-wing idiocy, I have serious reservations about your fairness, non-partisanship and funding.
But maybe (just maybe) the reason the article above didn't mention any of this is because the other journalism adviser is:
Steve Daniels is the co-anchor of ABC11 Eyewitness News at 5:30 pm and 11:00 pm Monday-Friday. Steve also anchors ABC11 Eyewitness News at 10 pm weeknights on CW22. In addition, Steve anchors Breaking News coverage from the Breaking News Center. Steve joined ABC11 Eyewitness News in June, 1999.
And considering one of the goals of this advisory committee is to:
A major responsibility of the Journalism Advisory Committee is to develop the policies that will instruct the staff how the tips received through ReportPublicCorruption.org should be communicated and which investigative journalists shall receive particular tips.
I smell a lot of story-scooping in our local ABC affiliate's future.
So...in addition to the addition of this new foundation to the Puppetshow's chart, should we be adding ABC11 also? Film at 11, on 11.
Oh the irony
Less Merit easily crossed the line of ethical misconduct in his tenure as treasurer, both in using state resources to promote his run for office ... and in engaging in partisan hackery.
I will definitely add ABC 11 to the Puppetshow map.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
A new map for the Show!
Version 2.3
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Running out of room
on that chart, which does not bode well for the quality of information making its way to the eyes and ears of the average North Carolinian. :(
It's twice as big as when I started covering the Show
:(
Indeed
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Sinister forces at work
Oh no!! Don't tell me that the sinister forces of darkness, masterminded by BlueNC's arch foe, Art Pope, are at it again!! A non-profit organization seeking information about corruption in government must be up to no good, particularly since only the Democrats control state government. And Les Merritt used his office as Auditor to promote his re-election bid? Thank goodness our stirling Council of State members like Bev Perdue, Roy Cooper, and others have never used their public offices to promote their election efforts! The final blow has to be that yellow journalist Don Carrington serving on the new group's Board of Directors. Carrington's partisan inclinations found him probing the activities of such outstanding public servants as Jim Black and he's spent all that time investigating poor old Mike Easley's real estate investments and other activities. We certainly wouldn't want anyone like Carrington involved with a group investigating corruption in public office. Oh, has BlueNC noticed the federal investigation going on about the Easley administration's activities? Apparently not. The blogoshphere of BlueNC only sees what it wants to see.
Sarcasm doesn't become you
And if you'd been paying attention for more than a nano-second, you'd know there is plenty of criticism around here of Democrats of every stripe in North Carolina.
Your argument that we shouldn't be skeptical of Less Merit's role in the latest wing of Art Pope's new opinion factory because "Democrats suck too" is lame. If that's the best you can do, then your best isn't very good.
Do your homework about what actually gets written here, then come back and complain if you still think your point is valid. In the meantime, here's a sampling:
I'd just about drop my teeth if anyone on the right in North Carolina publicly criticized their Republican colleagues. Republicans have to be a drunk perverts to be challenged by the party, and even then it doesn't happen until the drunk pervert is actually arrested for something else.
Talk about seeing only what you want to see. Look in the freakin mirror. Then show me one thing you've ever written critical of Republicans.
Jerk.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Tunnel vision
Don Carrington didn't "probe" Jim Black, though he did take pictures at the trial prosecuted by Wake County DA, Democrat Colon Willoughby.
You'd have to search pretty hard at BlueNC to find Easley fans. We don't pretend to be non-partisan but we don't toe the party line either. Art Pope's influence must be waning if he keeps having to invent and fund bogus "non-partisan" organizations to influence the media based on deception instead of honest facts.
I didn't see Carrington's aerial pictures of Art Pope's multi-million Bald Head Island house that appreciated in value faster than Easley's or of Bill Graham's multi-million mansion or of the property that Graham co-signed with Tom Fetzer. Carrington has a prurient interest in Democrats & enemies of Art Pope. I see him driven by his benefactor's interests, not by public corruption in general. The JLF et al are the propaganda wing of the Republican Party with Mitch Kokai as the official videographer and Carrington as the official gumshoe.
I really enjoyed Carrington's series on Coy Privette, David Almond and Cary Allred. What it lacked in depth it made up for in brevity.
I want you to do me a favor
I want you to read this article and this article, a two-part series Don Carrington wrote about Michael Decker, the Republican who took a bribe from Jim Black, switched parties to give him power, and was later rewarded with a cushy job.
Don Carrington went to great pains to paint Decker as a good man that took an unfortunate turn, laying the blame for this tragedy on those corrupt Democrats. It's that kind of partisan bias that will keep him from following up on leads that may adversely impact Republicans. Whether that bias is his own or trickles down from above doesn't matter: his work is not non-partisan, and smart-ass comments like this:
aren't going to change that fact.
If you want evidence
that I am not above attacking Democrats, here's a couple of my more recent diatribes:
Why bother, he fits his name perfectly
Scalawag: a white Southerner who supported Reconstruction policies after the American Civil War (usually for self-interest)
rogue: a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel
imp: one who is playfully mischievous
A derogatory term for Southerners who were working with the North to buy up land from desperate Southerners
Southerners who were former Unionist and Whigs who helped the radical Republicans in the South because they accepted the consequences of the war.
Southern Republicans in postwar politics who had advocated peace during the war or who had never supported the South, later looking to have their loyalty rewarded.
He's absolutely a post & run Scalawag who is not interested in anyone's opinion but his own deluded and uninformed one.
Jaw-dropping irony
I initially intended to read this thread preparatory to saying something to the effect of, ah, don't fret, Les Merrit wasn't especially obnoxious--other than the fact that he acted as a Republican partisan in an office that especially demands fairness and impartiality.
But to have him come into the Pope network as head of a new entity entitled the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service...oh, good grief. The irony is as thick as chunky peanut butter. And without doubt, it will be spread all over everything.
Dan Besse
objectivity
hey, I love you guys...just trying to get a little dialogue going here. Is everything black and white or should I say blue and red?
You call this:
trying to get a little dialogue going?
Geez, I can't imagine what it would be like if you decided to be insultingly dismissive...
You want to talk about objectivity, or the lack thereof? Okay. Objectivity requires a certain amount of detachment. You have to detach yourself from your own preconceived notions, and you must also be detached from those who would wield influence over you.
As far as detaching myself from my own preconceptions, it's a battle I must fight constantly, and I don't win as often as I'd like. As to those who would wield influence over me: I've never received a penny from BlueNC or any other political organizations or individuals, nor any promises of future favors for me or mine. As a matter of fact, I actually spend money on people and places so I can write about them, which, now that I see it written down like that, seems kind of foolish. ;)
My writing may be motivated by the desire to inform, or the search for a clear path to progress, or even the unhealthy exercising of narcissistic bravado; but it's not motivated by a desired continued inclusion in a multi-millionaire's network of loyal sycophants.