Rudy Wright - The Hickory Daily Record prints Garbage

Back in late June, I received an e-mail of interesting links from a meeting that was attended by Mayor Rudy Wright in which he said some "vurry intursting" things. I alluded to one of the statements that really ticked me off, where he talks about the Hickory Daily Record article from June 2, 2013 related to Hickory being the 5th most miserable metropolitan area in the United States. He says that people are entitled to their opinions, but the paper doesn't have to (shouldn't) print them. He talks about "people called in with axes to grind" and belittles people -- many his constituents.

Hey Rudy, no one "called in." The paper asked questions on their website and in the hard edition. People responded and the paper utilized those responses to form an article. They had over 400 people respond to their poll that was on their website. That's a pretty respectable amount of respondents and that is probably what bothers you the most. The HDR did not create this story, as you state, their audience did. That is what any good business model does. They listen to their customers. Hickory Inc. should try that!

You can read about it here
Readers say Hickory area needs some work - June 2, 2013 
Hound responds to HDR "Readers say Hickory area needs some work" - June 3, 2013

I received these e-mails from an anonymous source who goes by the name "Conover Crusader". It seems that whomever this is that they are doing a takeoff of some of my work. "Conover Crusader", you can get in touch with me again at the e-mail you sent this to the last time. I'd certainly like to talk or at least have some sort of correspondence.

Anyway, I think that y'all will find this more than interesting. It certainly doesn't sound like Mayor Wright thinks very much of the people who submit Letters to the Editor. We know that he wanted to have a meeting last week with the Hickory Daily Record staff. I assume that he did have that meeting. After that meeting was when the HDR came out with the article that had a headline about there being no basis to Joe Brannock's questions at the last City Council meeting. They also didn't allow Joe to respond to Alder Patton or to Mayor Wright's assertion that 'the law doesn't matter to Joe Brannock.'

The HDR article against Joe Brannock even showed that Bruce Meisner had appointed his business partner to the Rental Property task force that Joe had served on and this person was his business partner in the property in question that had been in violation of Code issues, and Alderman Meisner did indeed vote against the motion to beef up code enforcement that would have directly affected properties such as the one in question. So where is the logic in the "No Basis" summation by the HDR?

I am not pointing out any of this to take the HDR to task about what we have seen in the last week and a half. It is what it is. I do stand by the statement that they were the ones who brought the Conflict of Interest discussion into play, so why run scared?  Logically one can see that the HDR is allowing themselves to be bullied by the local Powers That Be in this community. This has been going on for a long time. Maybe, we should see if  Mr. Buffett likes his media entity being bullied. I just want to see a level playing field as we move forward into this election. Rudy and his Army will do everything to keep that from happening. And we will continue marching forward.



Who were the money interests???