Yours truly got to thinking about The Repository's apparent "special relationship" with Mayor William J. Healy, "the second."
The musing prompted this thought: are there other "special relationships" between The Rep and other Stark County - taxpayer funded - government units?
Mind you, The Rep is, as media, supposedly serving the public interest and therefore is entitled to public information to parse and analyze to determine, whether or not, the public interest is being properly protected in the halls of Stark County government.
The Stark County Political Report stands in the same place and is entitled to get the same respect and treatment as The Rep.
Healy blows off The Report all the time by refusing to directly answer The Report's questions.
However, if he thinks he can manipulate them, Healy hotfoots it over to The Rep's editorial office regularly. Moreover, there are likely many, many phone calls between The Rep's editors and reporters and Healy.
The SCPR has indication that Rep reporters are phoned from Canton City Hall to give them a heads up on a breaking story. The details of a specific incident will follow in a later installment of this series.
Healy doesn't have the the cojones to sit down in a "no holds barred" one-on-one with yours truly.
To the extent that the SCPR gets answers, they come through Healy's communications director on an inconsistent basis.
On more than one occasion Herman has defined the SCPR's request for a Healy response as not being a public records request, and, like his boss, just blows it off; knowing the SCPR - a one person operation - has limited resources with which to file lawsuits.
Now do you suppose this happens to The Repository? (The Rep's number of employees is down from 70 to about 60 since since the SCPR first started up on March 12, 2008, but 60 is a lot higher than 1)
Probably not.
Take this example.
An email public records inquiry to Herman (note the date, December 28th), to wit:
Herman's answer: (On January 6, 2010 - 9 days after sent - Would The Repository would had to have wait this long for a response?)
Imagine?
Of course, "busy" catering to The Repository and the like!
No way, would Healy and Herman take 9 days to respond to such a simple "answer at my fingertips" inquiry.
More importantly, if The Repository is getting preferential treatment, what does this say about the trustworthiness of The Rep as Stark County's primary news and editorial source? Wouldn't want to p*** off those who treat you well in preference to others, would you?
In succeeding installments, the SCPR will bring additional examples to bear which suggests to yours truly that The Rep gets preferential treatment from taxpayer funded institutions of government and public officials.
Tomorrow: Installment 2.
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