Ever since I moved to Sterling I’ve thought that a local paper, with fair/balanced coverage would do well. Perhaps I’m just too nit-picky and the local papers are just fine. I probably won’t find out though, because I just don’t feel compelled to read them up any longer (from curbside to table to recycling bin is how they’re treated in my house these days).

One more thing. My blood is still boiling from reading BarbaraN’s post on her efforts to seek an afternoon language session for her child. I tell you, if that had been me, I would have been sorely tempted to get up in the face of that vice-principal and ask him/her in no uncertain terms: “Who do you think owns this damn school and pays your salary, stupid?!!!” One thing is darn sure. Something’s gotta change in the attitudes around this school system.

I would prefer to watch for awhile to see how the LI and other papers cover this budget battle. At this moment, I think the media attention is fastened on Hatrick because this guy does not have a tendency to back down from the battle very easily. However, he now seems to be ready to compromise a bit — if you can take the recent agreement to freeze LCPS salaries all up and down the line as an example (even though he now looks like he may have agreed to this because nobody else in Virginia, apparently, is raising the pay levels this year).

Quite frankly, I think the ball is completely out of Hatrick’s court right now and that the real burden will fall on members of the BOS. I believe that the BOS is now in a position were they cannot afford to disregard the key issues you have outlined. These issues will have to be discussed, and the media will have to follow that discussion sans the usual pressure from the education lobby groups. I’m hoping that this is the case anyway. At least four and possibly five of those supervisors (Delgaudio, Buckley. York, McGimsey, and possibly Miller) have their noses up against the public safety and zoning ordinance volcanoes in Eastern Loudoun and also have some other favorite agendas as well (McGimsey and the greening of LC, for example). I just don’t know how the local media can avoid a focus on those things unless they go completely biased in favor of Hatrick and the school budget. That, to my mind, is not a very good idea if those papers want to keep their readership at current levels.

You started off this thread by discussing the most recent issue of the LI. I didn’t get quite the feeling of bias which you indicated was there. But, then, maybe I just wasn’t looking for it. I’ve kept that issue and will go through it again, as well as do some closer comparative checking of the next couple of issues. Maybe we can continue this during a subsequent go-around. Good thread. Interesting. Sure beats out all the vitriol and unseemly name-calling you encounter on some of the other blogs.

That all said, the big elephant in the room from my perspective is still the way illegal immigrants are sucking the school budget dry. I cannot believe the comparative ratios of ESL staff to other educational departments nor the frequency with which we are building new schools on the backs of the property owners. Alas, given the current split of the BOS and what is going on nationally, I am at the point of despairing that this burden will ever be lifted. It just might become even worse in 2009-2010 for reasons which I do not have to explain. I’m not one who turns up my nose at our tradiitonal history of immigration; but, My Lord, the money barrel always has a bottom to it and we may be fast approaching that bottom.

I can appreciate your take on the issue and it seems you have another insight (knowing John Jr.) that I have not. I am sure that the people at the paper are decent enough. I really like reading editorials and that is where the bias/slant originally started to rear its ugly head. But of recent, moving to the “standard” news part of the paper. I am reading (and hearing) the sub-liminal or “between the lines” as it were, and it just appears too political in all aspects anymore. Of note is the article on the school budget. This paper has always championed better education for this county and Hat-trick has always gotten what he wants while running amuk. The article doesn’t focus on national grade averages, national economy, local and national unemployment, national and local falling housing prices or any of the other “factors” that drive our budget; inclusive of the schools. It focuses on the poor superintendent that must come up with a plan to CUT his budget and he just thinks that is terrible for everyone involved. THAT is what the article focused on. With everything about in the toilet for sometime now, why does my county tax continue to rise every year? Why is that rise going to the school system? Does the few who do have the wealth think that the many (the poor in this county-including me) think that this school budget can just go unabated year after year without consequence or arguement?

The Independant is a local source of news. Like all other sources of media, most people heed these articles and act accordingly. The paper has to be neutral and share and report both aspects in the same article before I can tear down this mantle I call bias.

I used to take home-delivery of the Times-Mirror. I never liked the consistent editorial slant in that paper or the fact that it was hard to find news on Eastern Loudoun. Contrary to your expressed views, I was never impressed with the Loudoun Easterner, either under Geddie Sr. or the new management, largely because it was so full of advertising and very short, I thought, on in-depth news articles.

When Geddie Sr. left the Easterner and started the Independent, he obviously had a very hard time in bringing the critical advertisers with him. I, in fact, was sure at one time that, given the growing thinness of the Independent, the newspaper was on the road to oblivion as a nice but failed try. Unfortunately, Geddie Sr. passed from us all too soon.

My personal opinion at this point is that young John and publisher Amy Burns have done an excellent job in bringing the paper back from a near-fatal condition to the point where I, who once despaired of ever being adequately informed on local issues, read the thing from cover to cover. Over the past few months, their coverage of the HCA issue and the wrangling over the school budget during the county budget crisis has been, in my humble opinion, very detailed and well handled. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I am becoming much better informed on local issues. And young John has a great sense of humor. His “Leftover Ink” column makes me laugh just about every time it appears.

I concede that the detection of a certain level of political bias in the so-called “national” reporting can be a legitimate beef if you are focusing on that aspect of it. I really don’t pay much attention to the stuff that goes beyond local and some state issues (recent political campaign reporting being the exception). In the area of local issues, however, John appears to be on the way to satisfying my own personal thirst for the kind of in-depth news that has always been so hard to find previously. If some of the local news is tinged with the political, I’ll live with it. This has become a very “political” county of late. At least it helps me to collect the quotes and other ammo to shoot back when political debate breaks out. That’s more than I had in the past, when I was always being ambushed by a lack of knowledge about where certain local pols were doing or going.

I am in no way trying to contradict or oppose your stated feelings on this issue, just giving my own personal slant to a very important subject raised by you in this post. On the issue of Kaine — he who knows not that you have to go through Maryland to get to Delaware but is deemed qualified to run the DNC — I am 110% in your camp and ready to sign on for combat. Want a real double-barreled nightmare? Try Governor McAuliffe or Governor Moran. Now, that should get your blood running cold!