Monday, April 27, 2015

Media Coverage of Local Government Events

A Village Trustee and his wife took a short vacation to New York to visit their son and his family. While in New York they took the grandchildren to the Bronx zoo.










While at the zoo a little girl, not too far from them was leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly a lion grabbed the little girl by her jacket collar and tried to pull her inside the cage under the eyes of her screaming parents.

The vacationing village trustee immediately ran over to the scene and hit the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Startled from the pain the lion jumped back and let the little girl go. The trustee picked up the girl and carried her over to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.

A news reporter who was at the zoo witnessed the entire event and said "Sir, that was the most gallant and brave thing I've seen a man do in my whole life." 
 
The trustee tried to down play it and said "It was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt any decent human would."

The reporter says, "Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living"?

“Well, I am a local elected government official from Nebraska.” he said.

The journalist left and the following morning the headline on the front page of the Washington Post reads:

GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL FROM NEBRASKA LASHES OUT AND ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AT THE BRONX ZOO

... and that my friends pretty much sums up the media's approach towards reporting on local government events these days.



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