“The Price of Freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.”
Robert Jackson
Let us be thankful there is a First Capitol News in St. Charles - a newspaper willing to write stories that ruffle the feathers of business leaders, government leaders, and anyone fleecing city tax dollars.
Many readers of this newspaper may not be familiar with the reporters of some of the competition and the First Capitol News certainly would like to keep it that way. As the most read newspaper in town, (and more importantly, the most exciting) I hate those weeks with holidays which mean that we have to wait a little longer to get the next edition of the paper. Whereas, I can remember for weeks certain front pages of the First Capitol News, I couldn’t tell you what the other guys printed yesterday.
One local reporter who must get pressure from his boss is, Jason Lee of the Suburban Journal. Poor Jason, instead of reporting on hard-hitting issues, or doing some fact-finding about corruption at city hall has to spend his days thinking how he can rewrite the same story over and over again. The latest story titled, “Former mayors say city ‘a mess’” rehashes how everyone is fighting.
A Day in the Life of Jason Lee...
I picture the editors telling Jason, “Look, we have written our slanted editorial for the month, you’d better get out there and figure out a way to create some news about how the council is fighting.”
Jason rebuttals, “I know of a great story about how the council saved a lot of money on health insurance costs.”
At this point, things really get heated, “Do you know who our major advertisers are?” We are not going to write any stories that will upset our major supporters.”
“Well, what if we finally covered the story about Express Scripts? We could certainly talk about the mayor’s letter sent to Chief Mokwa which is prohibited by charter and which endangered a $100 million dollar lawsuit. Or even the sale of the police department — now there are some real curiosities there...or, to be fair, what if we wrote a good story on how the main signature collector refused to speak at her deposition and pled the 5th. Certainly that is worth looking into and reporting.”
“Look, Jason, we here at the GOP Journal, err umm, Suburban Journal, aren’t as much reporters as advertisement specialists. You know that. We have talked about all this before. Do you know how much money the City of Saint Charles spends with us a year? We couldn’t rent this new office in Saint Peters if they weren’t coughing up $250,000 a year with us! We understand that you went to J-school and you want to ‘make your mark’ but we here at Lee Enterprise have taken our stand and you have got to fall into line or go work for the other paper in town.”
“You mean the Post?”
“No, that’s Lee Enterprises too and they have the same bucks flowing into their bank account from the same people we do! I meant the First Capitol News.”
“Oh!”
“Write another story about how those guys are all fighting, it’s an embarrassment, yada yada yada...”
“Don’t you think we have beat that drum long enough? I mean, Saint Peters is fighting, O’Fallon is fighting and our newspaper...”
“Advertisement spreadsheet.”
“Advertisement spreadsheet...seems to really just focus on Saint Charles.”
“Here’s an idea...call some former mayors and ask them to give a comment about the city. Leave out anything good that is said, you know lead them a little - call Boschert, Wetter and Moeller. You can say something about how they give the council an “F” on their report card, it will be great and there’s no need to look through records, dig for fact, etc. you just put in a nice friendly call.”
“Wait a minute, wasn’t the charter written the way it is because folks were kinda afraid of Boschert becoming a strong mayor? And, didn’t he lose his election as well as Wetter - and Moeller made it into office with like, 20% because they didn’t have runoff elections back then? Also, you forgot Nichols.”
“Jason, those questions sound more like a reporter, and what are we?”
“I know, Advertisement Specialist.”
“Good! Now get out there and get us a scoop. I want chocolate and I think Amy wants Strawberry. And remember - NO REPORTING! Customers don’t like a paper that is controversial.”
Under his breath, “Is that why the First Capitol News is read by more people in St. Charles than our two or three papers combined?”
“I heard that!”
On a promising note, Steve Pokin has written a couple of stories that weren’t bad. Good luck Steve! I’m not sure how long you can keep up writing those stories in the GOP Journal, but I wish you luck!
On a sadder note, Don Knotts (aka Barney Fife) recently passed. I wanted to take a moment to pay my respects.
