Don Zeigler dot Info

Our local paper, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, loves them some right-wing columnists. Check out the alarmist crap below:

"One wonders if liberals believe there is any element of our lives that would not be better under government control. But imagine what a nightmare it will be if things devolve to the point where government chooses who can report news in a newspaper, or on radio, television or the Internet.

"Defeating this power grab depends upon the free flow of reliable information, which is a significant challenge, given the degree to which the mainstream media has abandoned its duty to produce balanced and accurate reporting to keep the citizenry well informed.

"Barack Obama believes there is too much information available to people and that they can’t tell the good from the bad. That’s insulting. The answer is more information, not less, and less information is what we’ll have with government management of the news."

Writer James "Smokey" Shott's entire column is here.

Now, as I've done probably 6 or 7 times before, after reading Smokey's latest rant I fired off a letter to the editor in response. Do you think it ever saw print? No.

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph seems to be very selective which letters to the editor they choose to print. If it's from a conservative reader, it sees publication. If it's from anyone who leans to the left, forget it.

Here is my unprinted letter to the editor, written in response to Shott's column referenced above:

Leave it to a right-wing pundit to dream up a conspiracy by the Obama administration where there is none.

So, we are apparently supposed to believe that the sinister administration is actively pursuing a plan to take over the news media, based on some pretty flimsy (actually nonexistent) evidence and a vague similarity between a title in the report in question, and a remark made by Emanuel. While we're at it, why not believe the government is responsible for the state of today's news media? It's all part of the plan, you know!

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph has devoted much editorial space to the matter of the EPA holding up for review mining permits in West Virginia. However, one fairly recent news item concerning mining permits was apparently overlooked by the newspaper:

In a January 5, 2010 letter to the Corps of Engineers Huntington office, the EPA declared that it would not object to issuance of a permit for Hobet Mining’s Surface Mine No. 45 in West Virginia, one of the projects had subjected to enhanced review. The review process produced a negotiated agreement in which Hobet agreed to cut the impacts to headwater streams in half (from burying six linear miles to only three).

A news article from 2009 was also seemingly missed by the Telegraph:

On August 10 of that year, the EPA gave the nod for the federal Army Corps of Engineers to issue a Clean Water Act permit for CONSOL Energy Inc.'s Peg Fork Surface Mine near Chattaroy in Mingo County.

So much for the myth the Obama Administration is anti-coal… and these are only two stories, found in about 60 seconds using Google.

Isn't it far better to submit these permits to careful scrutiny, then take action after working diligently with the coal companies to resolve environmental issues, rather than continue to let them indiscriminately befoul our state's drinking water, decimate hundreds of miles of streams, and turn our natural beauty into barren moonscapes?

I emailed this to the paper but doubt it will see publication, for the simple fact that it doesn't fit into the editorial staff's blatantly right-wing agenda. In its zeal to condemn anything and everything Obama, the Telegraph is doing its readers a disservice by missing, whether by accident or intentionally, coal-related news stories that prove the administration is willing to reach compromises with our state's coal operations.

As a former employee of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, I was shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden death of longtime executive editor Tom Colley on Saturday, January 10. I worked with Tom for nearly nine years, and his dedication to his profession, his community and his newspaper were truly inspiring.

I was a graphic artist and as such did not work with Tom on a daily basis. However, I also wrote an opinion column for many months back in 2006, and thus got to know Tom a lot better as he worked with me to hone my writing skills and get my message across in limited editorial space.

This was an exciting time for me and Tom really enjoyed the often heated public responses to my unashamedly biased approach to politics, religion and local issues. He sometimes joked to me that page A-4 of the Thursday edition, which was when my column ran, seemed to be the only page of the paper read on those days. This was when the BDT had an electronic message board tied to the online edition, and we would really get a kick out of the discussion my columns generated.

Tom even told me that he would sometimes receive extremely nasty emails or phone calls concerning something I had written. But to his credit, he would run what I wrote and let the chips fall where they may. He always said that feedback of any type meant people were genuinely interested in the topic at hand, even if they didn’t agree with the conclusions of the writer.

Thanks, Tom, for allowing me the opportunity to connect with our readers, and for your always steady hand at the wheel as we went through ownership and staff changes. Through it all, Tom never lost his vision of what the BDT should be, and of the responsibilities of the news and editorial staff.

More than anyone else, Tom WAS the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. The paper will continue, and no doubt someone will ably step into his position and carry onward. However, it simply won’t be the same newspaper without Tom sitting in his office on the third floor.