The Herald-Sun's lead Durham story today covers the Angier-Driver supermarket/deli/cafe plans we first discussed here back on Sept. 10.
Not surprisingly, the coverage puts a laser-light focus on the fact that principal Joseph Bushfan is the husband of chief district judge Elaine Bushfan -- mentioning her before naming her husband.
The H-S also adds to the civic record the financial backing of ex-City Councilman Dan Hill for the project and the presence of Tom Niemann and Barker French as advisors; it also notes that over $600,000 worth of applications are in the pipeline, Bushfan's included, for the $1.1 million the City Council has dedicated to supporting start-up businesses in targeted neighborhoods.
As of 6am this morning, there's no comments on the story, though given the crazies like "agent10" and "pacfandave" who hover over their keyboards to post on Herald-Sun stories, I wouldn't expect that to last long.
It's absolutely newsworthy (to my mind) that a $200,000 grant is going to the husband of a local judge for a new business start. And it's perfectly appropriate, and good, for the daily paper to try to run down whether the grant was on the level (something that, based on the reporting, it seems to be at this point.)
In fact, that's one of the points I was trying to make on Monday: the ability to dig deep into a story through investigative journalism is one of the true areas of value that daily newspapers bring in a community. Blogs can't do that reliably, consistently, on a part-time hobbyist basis. (Five years down the road, though -- well, that's a conversation for another time.)
Still, though, it's too bad when the political climate in a city is such that the headline of such a story is "$200K given to start-ups with leader ties," for a story that doesn't mention the fact that this will be the only significant grocery store in the neighborhood once the Alston Ave. widening is complete.
What that says to your typical newspaper reader is, the cloud of suspicion is the story. And it's certainly a part of the story. But it doesn't seem to be the only story.
Heck, now that the fashion is for metro stories in the Herald-Sun to be divided, like Gaul, into three parts, I'm sure the metro team could have written one story on the Bushfan connection, and a second on the grocery market plan -- maybe a third on the streetscape plan itself, for instance.
It actually would be nice to see some coverage of the streetscape plans, for that matter; the H-S ran a news brief on Aug. 21 retelling the city's press release of the five streetscape meetings, but I don't think they've covered the topic at all since then.
What about grants for other busineses on Angier Avenue? There certainly hasn't been any other activity from those business owners. If Durham wants to truly revitalize this area, then they will step upto the plate and help them do what needs to be done to obtain some of that grant money. Most of the owners in this area wouldn't know where to start to look for help.
Posted by: David English | October 06, 2009 at 04:19 PM