To the Haters.
To all who want us to address the McDole shooting and the Howard beating: I know very little about it, and to the extent that I do know about it, I do not have a political opinion on it yet. I will check into it over the next few days, and if I am inspired to write about it, I will. But I won’t make any promise that I or any one here will.
I am not paid to do this. In fact, I pay to do this. This may sound kinda of crass, but this is my hobby. Politics. Local Politics. National Politics. When I get time to read and write, I do. As such, things that interest me, and that I have a political opinion about, are what I tend to write about. I don’t know how to write about the beating of a teenager to death in a high school bathroom.
This is not the News Journal or WDEL where we report the news and then analyze the news. I focus on politics, both Delaware and National. It is true, we have focused too much lately on national politics and the presidential race. Behind the scenes last week, I began to switch that national focus back to local by researching and writing up the Vote Tracker piece. El Som has his Pre Game Post Game General Assembly posts coming back this week. I am going to be writing more on the Congressional race, and I have a new entry coming tomorrow or Tuesday on who is running for each General Assembly seat.
But I and we cannot cover everything you want. So, I do want you to encourage any and all of you to submit guest posts on the topics you want to see covered. Email me at DelawareDem@delawareliberal.net. And I your writing is good, hell, we may just keep you around.
I’m not interested in a McDole or Amy Joyner-Francis post unless somebody has some compelling new insight or information. If not then we would just be in Susan Monday territory – “You be the judge…”
It wasn’t hate that prompted the comment, it was disappointment that nobody seems to care about those cases.
A week or so ago somebody (don’t recall whom) commented that Black Lives Matter is “over” or some similar term. And so it surely seems to be, because cable TV is getting better ratings by covering Trump non-stop. Yet the killings have continued at much the same pace as last year, only without the media coverage.
The McDole case was one of the two Delaware cases that acted as local windows into a national issue. (The first was the case of the Dover police corporal who was found not guilty of what the videotape showed him doing, assaulting a suspect. He was given $230,000 to leave the force.)
I was especially interested in it because a lot of hopeful people think AG Matt Denn is the most liberal/progressive Democrat with gubernatorial ambitions. Holding his current job will put that belief to the test, and I think he did quite well. I have never seen a Delaware official make available to the public all the video and audio that the office put out with its report.
We always seem to criticize voters who don’t care about local politics and only show up for presidential elections. What concerns me is that we seem to be emulating those we generally look down upon for their lack of involvement.
If the regular posters and commenters at Delaware’s foremost political website are seen as not caring, officials will feel comfortable ignoring the rest of the public.
To be clear, I don’t think you’re a hater, Anon. “To the haters” is just a phrase. And I have taken your criticism and opinions to heart. But like I said… what is the political angle on the Howard beatings? I am sure there is a societal commentary possible, but I am at a loss on any political angle. I thought Denn handled the indictments of the three girls well, and I thought the crimes charged, given the evidence, was appropriate, so I had nothing to comment on there.
“I have never seen a Delaware official make available to the public all the video and audio that the office put out with its report.”
Agreed. I think Denn went to the limits of what he was able to do politically (and perhaps legally), and deliberately provided plenty of ammunition for a civil case. The outcome of the report was unfortunately the same as ever, but it wasn’t the usual whitewash.
it was disappointment that nobody seems to care about those cases.
What concerns me is that we seem to be emulating those we generally look down upon for their lack of involvement.
I don’t think that this is fair. Some of us do care about these events and 1) am still not sure how to process it and 2) are pretty much slammed by RL. Which for me means work overcommitments (including travel) plus working on local campaigns overcommitments plus working on neighborhood stuff plus trying to stay engaged with my family and friends plus get to the gym regularly plus helping my sister who is still recovering from a serious MS episode. If you mean lack of involvement “online” then you’d have a point. But just because we may be scarce here does not mean we are scarce in other places.
^^This may be blog malpractice, but it is what it is.
Given the disgusting comments about this tragedy all over other websites, I’m kind of glad no one here gave an opening for that crap to happen on this site.
Years ago I took jason up on the “go start your own blog,” and ran my own for about five or six years (with at least one major hiatus). I did pretty well (for about two years, maybe three, it was the second most widely read DE political blog with about 30% of the traffic of DL). What I learned, however, was just how time and labor intensive this kind of thing is, for literally no money and (outside the narrow world of blogging) no real positive value received. At the most I had three bloggers working on it (I was still writing 80% of the content) and one day I just burned out.
In part DL survives because there are enough bloggers working at it that when one person (it’s been jason occasionally, Liberalgeek, even Donviti) burns out or leaves, then others can cover the slack. But it’s always a labor of love, and you write about what interests you … and if you don’t write about everything, then too bad.
There are stories I wish were covered here more often, but on balance in such a small state there literally is nothing equal to DL, and if everybody bitching about it either (a) tried it; and (b) contributed more of the stuff they’d like to see (they’ve published my own guest posts on different occasions), then it would only get better.
I was curious about the lack of a post on the Joyner-Francis murder. I chalked it up to the intense interest in the Democratic primary as well as the difficulty in deciding what point of view to take. Also, there did not seem to be an obvious representation of it that would reflect any overarching theme or value.
I use to be a hater… even a master hater… then someone drew a little line connecting the bottom of the “h”…
And now I’m normal…
@cassandra: I’m sorry you took it so much to heart. It wasn’t meant as criticism but as a spur to get people talking about this. I realize that for you the section on WPD use of deadly force policy is more than just something to talk about, and I’m willing to wait to hear your take on it.
In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I do take this seriously and do wish I could spend more time working in here. Still.. If I had a government job, I’d have alot more time!
😆
I remember that in 2011, a very nice person wrote to DL asking them to post something about an event. I don’t remember what all was going on at the time, but no one picked up the ball. The nice lady emailed me directly and said that she was disappointed that we didn’t post anything on it.
Somehow, I took her email as chiding and it pissed me off. I wrote some angry reply (not DD-level anger, but pretty angry for me).
That was about the time that I decided to hang up the cleats. When you find yourself yelling at one of the sweetest ladies in Delaware, you may have taken it too far. I still could kick myself for that email.
Damn, I was going to start my own blog, but people are brutal and I’m a sensitive kind of guy