Akkam’s Razor

My complaints are only in a couple of areas. For starters, there is almost not civic value whatsoever. Delco is a little strange, as you have boroughs and townships who’s size can be measured in blocks rather than miles. Who are my elected officials? How does the political side of Delaware County work. You could argue that a paper is there for news, but the news sometimes seems to be fluff pieces, nothing investigative.

Which brings me to my next point - in the last couple of years, there have been some scandalrific events here in Delco. We had a venemous solicitor who hounded a superintendent so badly with her unfounded criticism and allegations of wrongdoing that he went out to the woods and killed himself (they were on top of that one). We had a local fire department that was allegedly running a speakeasy in their firehouse. We had a township commissioner (and judge) who installed hidden cameras in the restroom of the police station due to reports of police officers sleeping on the job. We had a repeat DUI offender who temporarily had his arrest squashed because he was a “friend” of the local government. And then we had another drunk driver, who dropped names, like Rep. Curt Weldon and Homeland Security Dir. Tom Ridge, and assumed the ID of a college roomate to avoid arrest.

What makes me mad about those stories. Because I didn’t read about them first in the Delaware County Times. The local NBC and ABC affiliates and the Philadelphia Inquirer all scooped the Delco Times. Now, the question is, did someone come to them, and did they pass on a tip? And why would someone go to the metropolitan news first? Worried their story would get squashed?

Next would be the Sound Off section. It seems like the intent of this section is for people to complain about local government, noisy neighbors, or helpful anonymous good samaritans. Lately, the quality of their calls and letters are just flat out wrong or onflammatory. In the past month there has been an ongoing diatribe pro and con for unions, supporting and ripping the Philadelphia Eagles, and insulting local law enforcement, never mind the repition of patently false comments about national politics. Some of my favorites:

Lastly, is Gil Spencer. What do we say about him? He’s a right-winger, whereas I am not. His column is tagged as “local”, but more often than not he is taking the talking point of the day and putting a local spin on it. Gil, if I want to hear about Michael Moore, or Social Security, or Liberal Bias, there are far better places to go than your column. Just to give you a hint of what I’m talking about, here are a few select articles:

In my opinion, this is the Ann Coulter school of journalism ( Ha Ha! I say outrageous things for money!!) Also, keep in mind that he is by far the polar opposite politically of the overwhelming majority of Delaware County, who I believe that despite a 2:1 advantage favoring the Republicans in voter registration has delivered a Democratic vote for President in 4 of the last 5 elections. Do you take a position like that solely to inflame and outrage the readers to get more of them to buy the paper so they can read what your NEXT outrageous column is supposed to be? His father, also Gil Spencer, seems to be well reveled in the liberal media, perhaps Gil, Jr. is laboring hard to get out from under dad’s shadow.