THE RON-FIRE OF THE VANITIES: Price scandal reflects darker motives of the mainstream press

In all honesty, I'd thought that this election would be something I would have already put behind me. It was a great three months from the time I filed to run until the night the votes came in. I still haven't felt a moment's regret in not winning a seat: 4,648 are just too many votes to be anything but ecstatic about.

But yet here I am: still compelled to be writing, this time about things that never should have happened because of this election. Or at least in a sane world would have met with some accountability already.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why God led me to run: to chronicle not just what happens in the life of a political candidate, but to observe some of the things that are wrong in our system... like when an elected official is caught breaking the law and when a sheepish media is complicit – whether it realizes it or not – in letting him get away with it.

Quick recap for those who don't know what's going on: the night before the election Ron Price – one of my fellow school board candidates – stole signs belonging to the campaign of U.S. House incumbent Brad Miller. He picked up seven of them around Reidsville and along Highway 14 and put them in the trunk of his car. The story he told later was that the Miller signs were illegally placed, so he was taking them to the local DOT in Wentworth. What he still hasn't bothered to explain is if the Miller signs were put in the wrong place to begin with, why did he replace with signs from the Vernon Robinson campaign, which he was working on.

Well, Price was caught red-handed by Miller supporters, and started being followed in his car by someone who was reporting his movements to the Reidsville Police Department. Price later said he thought his life was in danger, so he drove to the Reidsville P.D., turned himself in and admitted to taking the Miller signs. The following night Price won a seat on the school board by coming in fifth place in the election.

Since then, a lot of people – including myself and several others who didn't win a seat in the election – have called for Ron Price to turn down his elected seat. He committed a criminal act, then tried to cover it up and play it down. It would be a terrible example of morality to be setting for the students of this county if Price is sworn in on December 11th. Price is insisting that he's going to be sworn in though: this crime that he’s committed hasn't bothered him at all. What's more, he's actually said to at least one person that what he did was okay because "I was elected".

But I'm not writing about Ron Price this time. I've already posted what I think about the Ron Price situation, and I still believe he should step aside.

This time, I'm writing about the media coverage of the Ron Price scandal.

Since almost immediately after the election, the local press has not been so much interested in the wrongfulness of Price's actions as it has been with the reaction from the other candidates. If what you know of the Ron Price situation only comes from the local "mainstream media", I could almost guarantee that you would come away with the impression that this entire thing is being driven by a handful of candidates who are resentful that they didn’t win in the election. And also that we are chomping at the bit to maneuver ourselves into a position to get Price's seat.

Oh okay, let's be succinct about it: the local media desperately wants this to be about bitter ex-candidates who are venting their frustration on Price so that they can fight tooth-and-nail for his seat.

They couldn't be more wrong. I've spoken with a lot of the candidates who didn't win, and not one of them has expressed – in any way, shape or form – a desire to be the one who gets Price's seat. They are interested in seeing the right thing being done in this though.

That's not good enough for the local media though. They are so resolute that this should be a bare-knuckle brawl over Price's seat that they’re throwing the semblance of journalistic objectivity right out the window. They are doing what they can to force this into be perceived as being nothing but a massive bout of jealousy.

It's like something out of Tom Wolfe's brilliant novel The Bonfire of the Vanities: the media is determined to cover the story that the media wants to be there. And it doesn't matter to the media that the story they insist on being there, isn't there to be found at all.

Take the News & Record, for example. I reminded reporter Gerald Witt over a week ago that it was inaccurate to describe those who did not win a seat as "losers", as he did in an article. We were "unsuccessful", certainly... but "losing" is something that happens because you are less skilled than another in a game. And public service is anything but a game.

We had what I thought was a vibrant exchange about the matter, with Witt even writing back to me and said that I had made a good point. I felt assured that he had taken it to heart. And then this gets published a few days ago in a set of reports to which Witt contributed:

Signs redux

We're two weeks removed from Election Day, but in Rockingham County there's still quite a bit of chatter about yard signs.

According to a Reidsville police report, Ron Price, Rockingham County school board member-elect, stole campaign signs belonging to Congressman Brad Miller a day before Election Day. The county's Democratic Party chairman didn't press charges that evening.

Since then, losing school board candidates have peppered the Internet with complaints about Price, including several entreaties calling for him to step down. That appears to be unlikely.

Look for this to get sorted out "Law and Order" style after Thanksgiving. The Rockingham County Sheriff's Office has delivered a summons for Price to appear in district court Nov. 30 to answer a criminal complaint filed by the wife of Richard Moore, one of the losing school board candidates. The independent newspaper publisher is arguably leading the way in blogging about Price.

Is it that hard to substitute "losing" with "unsuccessful"? I don't know if Witt was responsible for how this short blurb came out, but whoever it was, they seem pretty bent on casting this as an "us versus them" thing. If the only bit of info about the Price scandal was this one scrap of newspaper, how could you not think that this was about nothing but the sore "losers" going after the guy who won?

Well, whoever wrote it, I thought the wording in this excerpt was crass and purposefully inflammatory. To say nothing about how, to an objective mind, it harps on the "losing" candidates far more so than it does the seriousness of the actions that Price has admitted committing. Pointing out the severity of the crime is far graver than the crime itself, if you were to believe the tone of this article.

Then there's the local Media General newspapers in Rockingham County, including the Reidsville Review. Some people have told me in the past few days that it seems that Jennifer Williams of the Review was intentionally painting me as being a "religious whacko" in her story this past week about the candidates – including some of those who won seats – who are now questioning Price's credibility.

I've made no attempt to hide the fact that I try to follow Christ as best I can. I've done that throughout my campaign and it's something I try to do in my daily life. And I did cite some scripture to Miss Williams: about how I sent the letter to Price first and gave him the opportunity to respond. But he didn't do that, so it then fell to me to openly publish my letter for everyone to see.

But to the best of my recollection I don’t know if I ever said that Ron Price "sinned against" myself. He did do wrong though in stealing the signs. If he did wrong against me, it was that he deceived me with his words of being a "conservative" with "Judeo-Christian values". From this experience I've learned that I should "test the spirits" more from now on instead of taking someone's claims about that at face value... but that's still not "sinning" against me.

(And by the way, I may not have won a seat... but I do have the satisfaction of knowing that I didn't try to deceive people into believing I was anything other than the person God has made me to be. If Price has a conscience about the matter, it should bother him greatly that it took the practice of deception to get him elected in the first place.)

Again, I have to wonder about how the Media General papers are portraying those who are calling for Price to step down. I'm already down on record as having nothing to gain by pursuing this issue though. It was important to me to try to win a seat by popular election. No other way would satisfy me. I'm not interested in being appointed to fill a seat and I'm going to turn down any nomination that I might do so. If I choose to go after a school board seat again it'll come via election: either for a district seat in two years or when at-large seats open again in four.

The only one who might gain something out of this is Richard Moore, and even that is doubtful. Price is almost certain to be sworn in on December 11th. If he were to step down before then, it's my understanding that Moore would get the seat since he received the next highest number of votes. If Price leaves or is forced out after getting sworn in, it falls to the Board of Education to send a list of nominees to the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners. It would be they – not the school board or by popular election – who would vote on who fills the seat. And let's be honest: the probability that this Board of Commissioners would choose to put Richard Moore in a school board seat are galactically slim.

So... why is the local media so fixated on making the candidates who are calling for Price to step down look like they're so bitter and resentful?

I realized a long time ago that the mainstream press is not interested in simply reporting the news, and letting things fall where they may. The mainstream media is, first and foremost, a business. It thrives on covering conflict. And sometimes it thinks there's nothing wrong with going out of its way to instigate a lil' conflict to get people to pay attention to the media that much more: because that translates into more readership or viewers (i.e. more money).

But even money is not the real driving motive of the corporate-owned press in this country. The unprofessed first priority of the mainstream media is to maintain the status quo of society. Remember the Agents in The Matrix? At one point Morpheus refers to them as "the gatekeepers": also one of the more common monikers of the mainstream press. And just as the purpose of the Agents was to keep things under control within the world of the Matrix, the corporate-driven media is driven to focus the attention span of average Americans on meaningless pageantry... because that's what keeps the American people in line.

Why does major news media obsess on news like O.J. Simpson or the Jon-Benet Ramsey case? Why are we inundated with meaningless drivel about Britney Spears breaking up with her husband via text messaging? Why should we be confronted with the racial tirades of Mel Gibson or Michael Richards when they really have no impact on our daily life?

Because it's easy, that's why. It's a far less difficult thing to play to people's raw emotions than it is to actively engage them to think about the world that's really around them. Because if more people did get motivated to think on their own, they would start doing things about what's going on wrong around us. And if they started doing that... why good heavens, the journalists in the mainstream press would actually have to go out and work to cover real news stories!

Some of the so-called "third party" and independent candidates wonder why it is that the press doesn't give them the coverage afforded the Democrats and Republicans. Some believe that on some level it is a "conspiracy" of sorts between the two major parties and corporate journalism... but I've always thought that mostly it has to do with the mainstream press both being too lazy to pay attention to anything other than the status quo, and doing what it can to keep society in a "manageable" form. And also for the journalists' own selfish sake: right now a lot of reporters enjoy access and privilege that comes with being "in the know" with the right politicians. What would come of their luxury if suddenly a set of unknown variables – in the form of independent elected officials – was throw into the works? No, the mainstream press has a vested interest in wanting to keep things "they way they are", and they're not going to be inclined to tolerate changing the rules on that anytime soon.

Here's the dirty secret of modern journalism: the mainstream press does not appreciate people who are out to "rock the boat". They are far more respectful of people from whom they know what can be expected. All the freak shows that you see on the evening news about the cult of celebrity and how people are beating each other up over the latest new videogame system are there to distract you from having to think – or even knowing they're there at all – about real ideas and choices and consequences.

Why is it that the Ron Price scandal is not only being treated with kid gloves by the local media, but also that those calling attention to it are sublimely being referred to as "sore losers"?

Because the quality of journalism in America has deteriorated to the point that it's too much hard work to do serious investigation anymore, and because it's a lot easier thing – and it sells just as many newspapers – to render incredulous in the public's mind those who have only simply sought to do what's right.

I realize that in the scheme of things, this is a very small thing to be picking over. But in a lot of ways, the local media's treatment of the Ron Price scandal is symptomatic of what's wrong with most of American journalism. It's not so much interested in reality as it is enforcing pre-conceived notions and prejudices. Or to be more accurate about it: our media is too engrossed with crafting its "ideal" version of reality to be bothered with merely reporting about the "real" reality.

In all seriousness, I wonder if it's the least bit possible for the local media to comprehend that most of the people calling for Ron Price to step down are only doing so because they believe it is the right thing to do, for its own sake and not because there might be something to be gained from it (which there isn't).

Or if they can comprehend that, I have to wonder if they possess the desire to understand it at all.