Blogosphere Proves Once Again Herald's Ineptitude
The local bloggers have proved once again The Brownsville Herald is Brownsville's no more. I have written about this in the past, but it is something that hasn't been remedied ever since the printing presses at the abandoned Herald offices across the street from the old Cameron County Jail on the edge of historic downtown fell silent and were sold to a newspaper in Matamoros. The staff at the Herald was slashed and burned. A mere skeleton crew of quasi-editors and almost-reporters occupy the old Edelstein Furniture warehouse now known as the VentureX building. The building casts a shadow on the Oyster Bar and The Vermillion at the intersection of Boca Chica and the frontage road.
The Big Three: El Rrun Rrun's Juan Montoya, The McHale Report's Jerry McHale, and The Brownsville Observer's Jim Barton are reporting about the turmoil in the Cameron County Sheriff's Department, the current budget issues with the school district, the apparent government take over and power grab City Manager Noel Bernal is trying over at City Hall, and other legitimate news stories about Brownsville's government and politicians.
Today's online version of The Brownsville Herald, which is no longer called The Brownsville Herald, by the way, has six article links about other cities in the Rio Grande Valley, and the main link on the splash page is about Santa Claus visiting sea turtles.
You read that right. Santa Claus and sea turtles.
There is very little real news reporting going on at The Herald's broom closet at VentureX. Valley Freedom Newspapers, the Herald's parent company, has always held the Lower Rio Grande Valley in contempt, preferring to run stories about Harlingen and McAllen. It appears the only time Brownsville gets the attention of the two other branches of MyRGV, the Valley Morning Star and the Monitor is when some tragedy, like a triple ax murder, befalls us.
The measure of a population's intelligence is directly related to the availability of good media coverage, current events, and pertinent information — a good citizenry is an informed citizenry.
We wonder why apathy and ignorance are the norm among the citizens of Brownsville. We wonder why the citizens of Brownsville don't go to the polls to help choose community leaders. We wonder why politicians ignore the needs of their districts and the city as a whole. We wonder why some commissioners just see their office as a means to line their own pockets and grow their personal business while the city drowns, the resacas overflow, and our publicly-owned utility company continues to bilk the public.
I have never considered myself one of the "must read" bloggers, and there certainly are other third and fourth-class blogs and Facebook local talk shows out there that mostly deal in the ridiculous and salacious rumor and innuendo, but the community definitely owes a debt of gratitude to Montoya, McHale, and Barton. I am aware there's plenty of negativity and criticism out there, one only needs to visit the comments section of El Rrun Rrun to see some of the attacks bloggers face from the anonymous horde, but that kind of negativity comes with the territory. I learned early on you're going to get a whole lot of negative comments, especially when your platform allows for the masses to make anonymous comments from the dark, but that's the price we pay. Being an open book and pouring your thoughts out on the internet means you're going to get attacked.
Sometimes those attacks come from within. I understand sometimes bloggers disagree or go to war against one another, but if it weren't for the bloggers and their blogs, we wouldn't be informed of the way the machinery in the local government works.
For better, or for worse, the Brownsville Blogosphere performs an essential function. When the newspapers and the television stations leave town and prefer to cover the Mid and Upper Valley, we're left to our own to bring the citizens the news.
Love them or hate them, the blogs do what the Herald won't.
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