The series of events that have transpired in the NOLA political landscape as of late have me thinking about politics, justice, the media and how they all interact. Since the storm, we’ve seen local media and law enforcement entities focus their attention on rooting out corruption among political offices and governmental agencies. Recently we’ve seen the local media shift their focus, thanks to Fred Heebe, on possible “corruption” (that doesn’t necessarily mean illegality) within the local U.S Attorneys’ Office, itself.
And thanks to the Newhouse cull we’ve even seen local media, for a brief moment, reluctantly turn the spotlight on itself and this is the matter I want to address in this post.
We saw panel after panel discussing what the effects of the Times-Picayune “downsizing” would be, as well as numerous editorial pieces from local blogs like this one to the national media outlets like the NYT. Occasionally, issues of possible ethical matters among our local media resources were discussed in some of those conversations but all in all that particular discussion was a rarity. I suppose that’s because it’s rather uncomfortable for media folk to turn the lens on themselves or the entity writing their paychecks and question matters of integrity.
Perhaps the most outstanding moment in the past few years where this issue arose was the discovery that WWL talk radio host, Garland Robinette, took a 100k loan from River Birch landfill operator, Fred Heebe. Continue reading……..