Another PNJ Editorial Explodes on the Launchpad......Part II: MAD Magazine meets The ONION

Sunday's PNJ Editorial reads like a news feature from MAD Magazine or the Onion.  Fake news:  Biased, ignorant, and mean spirited.

This editorial that will appear in tomorrow's PNJ is nothing but a hatchet-piece, ill-informed hit on three of the elected Escambia County Commissioners that have recently (and rightly) spoken up to staff--- expressing significant concerns about multiple topics. 

These recent commissioner to staff questions and discussions are completely and totally legitimate and within our purview as the policy and oversight entity in this county.

Instead of doing ANY research or investigation on the reasons for these public expressions of concern by multiple commissioners though, the PNJ instead lazily accuses 3 of us of micro-managing.

PNJ--here is a newsflash:  Call me and ask me about the investigations of harassment that were blown off--I'll tell you about it.

Call me and ask me about the legal representation quagmire that is messy and that has all kinds of ramifications and implications ---ethical, legal and otherwise---and I'll tell you my opinion about why this is a hot topic that rightly generated discussion.  

No calls, no questions, no investigative journalism of old. 

Nope. 

PNJ just does a drive by pass and churns up the garbage conclusion that we should blindly go along with any and all recommendations by staff, regardless of whether or not there might be compelling reasons to pause and reassess.  Nope--they believe we simply need to make "nice" with staff.

Trust them, dummies! is the message.

Guess what PNJ-- I do trust, but I verify.  That's my job.

PNJ editors intimate we are essentially rubes.  They ignorantly call us unqualified. They don't know our professional qualifications and experience though--yet they call us unqualified?

Some of their whacked-out garbage reminds me of fake news articles I would read in MAD magazine as a kid.  This opinion looks like a "news story" one might read in The Onion.

The crack 2-person "editorial board" of the PNJ, consisting of Andy Marlette and Lisa Savage, questions our motivation, attacks our credibility, and admonishes us from contradicting staff yet they are purposely, willfully ignorant of the underlying topics generating the consternation.

Next--they beat us up for apparently having the audacity to accept campaign contributions from benevolent community leaders that want to participate in the elections process and help our campaigns by making contributions. 

But wait--other candidates that receive contributions from these same community leaders don't get thrashed by the PNJ for accepting this money.  No mention of the fact that many elected officials, current and past, also get checks from this family.  No mention that these contributions are completely legitimate, legal, and above board.  Nope.  Just the sickening insinuation that we--the county commissioners-- are somehow dirty and are to be ashamed of accepting these campaign checks.

Newsflash 2 for PNJ:  Most that run for office locally are not independently wealthy and therefore we are greatly appreciative of business leaders and benevolent community members that write campaign checks.....Absent this--many would not/could not run.  Why does PNJ want to ostracize, bully, and publicly attempt to humiliate those generous persons that write campaign contributions?

Untrue, lazy, feckless, biased, and slanted opinions like this from publications like this are the reason more and more Americans report they no longer trust the media and are dropping newspaper subscriptions like hot rocks. 

PNJ contributes to its own demise with garbage like this editorial.