The importance of "small town" presses

Most folks think the small town press is a journalistic backwater, but sometimes they cover important issues better than the big city dailies that eventually get around to discovering the importance of the issue.

At "http://www.nimbynews.com/", the NIMBY News--"Not in my back yard", published by Jack McNamara--has news about political corruption in the Far West Texas/Big Bend area you simply won't find anywhere else. Some big topics include drug smuggling across the Mexican border--McNamara blew open the important story a few years ago about how Marines shot and killed a young Hispanic shepherd boy in Redford, Texas, (supposedly the Marines thought he was a drug "mule"), an item that made a huge stink down here in this area for many months, and made a bigger stink when the guy who shot the kid was wrongfully acquitted in a Federal Court; the Sierra Blanca toxic waste facility--the dump was "given" to Hudspeth County because so few folks live out there and the political clout is almost non-existent--corruption running as high-up in Texas/national politics as Congressman Pete Gallego and then governor--now President--Dubya Bush assured that the 1,000 or so denizens of this desert area had to put up with the consequences of a toxic waste dump; and finally, McNamara still has the local politicos shaking in their boots whenever he shows up at a Brewster County (Alpine, Texas) Commissioner's meeting--this is how effective he is in trying to fight corruption in the area I call home. The thing is, it isn't until McNamara has been digging for months on these kinds of issues that they get picked nationally, but most of them do. The man is respected, that's why.

Then there is the Sierra Times out of Elko, Nevada, at "http://www.sierratimes.com/", which broke open the now famous McGuckin-child custody-land fraud-you-name-it case up near Sandpoint, Idaho. Joanne McGuckin, who upon losing her husband to death from muscular sclerosis fell into deep poverty with the six children, has been accused by local prosecuters--with a hidden agenda--of "child neglect" and "unsound mind", leaving them in squalor (all pix I've seen of the living conditions do indicate some squalor, but after months of dire poverty and loss of a loved one--how many of you who lose your spouse of child feel like cleaning the house?--that might be expected, particularly, as the stories say, there are a number of dogs around), and, trying to pay back taxes on land she still owned out of a large parcel she had to give up previously, McGuckin was picked up by sheriff's deputies laying in wait for her. All kinds of charges, from alcohol abuse to child abuse to unsound mind, have been levelled against her, and nearly all of them have been dropped--yet Bonner County still has her children! Plus it turns out that the McGuckins have been harrassed by greedy county officials for years because their land is a primo peice of property sitting on a pristine lake that the county would like to see developed to drive up property values and rid themselves of a family they see as a thorn in their side (oh, and, BTW, McGuckin is NOT involved with Aryan Nations or any of the militia groups Idaho is supposedly known for!). Outside of the Sierra Times, the first major daily to pick it up was WorldNetDaily at "http://wnd.com/", then a few days later CNN and others were playing it, (naturally) supporting the "offical version" that McGuckin was unfit to rear her children. But for the human interest angle, no one has done it better than the Sierra Times.

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