MIN CHC 1989-04-04 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

system isn' t going to be for people who blatantly abuse power , aren' t gonna be picked up. It. . .maybe I 'm a little bit too idealistic about it; but I don' t see that. I see the media as doing its job in this County. Sometimes I wonder whether they do too much of a job. But you know that ' s, one of the frequent criticisms you hear about the media. They have an affinity at times for the irrelevant. The classic being--but I think our media is pretty good-- but the classic being, you guys will remember , when Gerald Ford got off the plane .for the trip from Europe and they focussed on the fact that he stumbled as he got off the plane. And I don' t know what he said. But that ' s just the comment I. . . SMITH: Well, I . . . BETHEA: I _think people do know in this County what' s going on and if you get too far . . . SMITH: I certainly want to have the media behind me. But a. . . BETHEA: That' s the worse place to have the media is in back of you. SMITH: But if you. . . if you would. . . if you would read a major daily, and I don' t mean to criticize the local media. I think that for the local media. . . for the cover- age that communities our size receives , we get what we need, and maybe what we deserve . No, we get what we need. But if you were to read a major metropolitan daily--a good one - like the Los Angeles Times , or the Washington Post or the local edition of the New York Times--and I read the Los Angeles Times every day; and local government is covered in a depth there that our media doesn' t have the capacity to do. They just don' t have the reporters to send them out to cover every commission and every hearing and what have you. So that ' s the other side of that coin. And it ' s not criticism of our media, but it ' s merely the nature of the market that we have here and what they are capable of doing. BETHEA: Other questions , comments? GREENWELL: I would like to thank you very much. SMITH: Thank you. BETHEA: Thank you very kindly, Dr . Smith. 180