Exposing Local Elites

This YES! Weekly cover story talked about bloggers creating gotcha moments that never happen. Well, given that the Greensboro-High Point region is now the hungriest in America, somebody's gotta keep those in power honest because there's no real investigative reporting here. The TV stations only do typical sweeps month pieces because they are in bed with the elites.

When I lived in the Triangle, there were (and still are) alternative publications that at times keep the powerful in line. Here, YES! Weekly did that for a while, but once the backlash to the "Downtown Babylon" cover story occurred, current and former editors and reporters have gone from being brashly antiestablishment to currying too much favor with the entrenched interests. Take for instance the DGI debacle at the start of the year. The evidence of rotten eggs was there, but many people decided to believe the power brokers of an organization that was more concerned about protecting their self interests than actually advancing downtown Greensboro as a whole.

Another problem is that the elites constantly show their inferiority complex. Area leaders seem to build things that don't make sense because they want to be better than Charlotte and the Triangle. If the UNC System shuts down A&T's nursing program, then that much bandied research campus at the corners of Lee (I'm not calling it Gate City Boulevard, folks) and S. Elm Streets may never take hold. And don't even get me started on the overhyped performing arts center.

What these power brokers just don't get is that the infrastructure simply isn't there anymore--that ship has sailed. Greensboro was the second largest city in the state back in 1960. A few years ago, Durham (maybe permanently) passed Winston-Salem to become NC's fourth largest city after those two cities traded the #4 and #5 spots for five years. Given that the Triangle has grown at a much more rapid pace than the Triad, it is possible that the Gate City could end up swapping places with the Bull City by the time the next census is revealed in five years' time.

The bottom line in all of this is that this area's journalists can either blow the lid on things that keep this area mired in mediocrity or they can continue punting until it's too late and all the dirt gets dished when the area is in a state of irreversible decline and everyone wonders why no one exposed things earlier.