By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2015) — Those of you who still bother to read the latest drivel in The Boring Broadsheet “learned’ yesterday that Kevin Swail (rhymes with “fail”) left his post in the Pittsfield Highway Department for the cooler climes of Lanesboro.

Stop the presses!

Those of you who read THE PLANET knew about this blessed event the day it happened, June 9, when we posted the following:

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THE PLANET has just received word from our spies that Pittsfield Highway Department head Kevin Swail(rhymes with “fail”) gave public works chief Bruce Collingwood his two-week notice this morning. Sources say Swail has taken a position with the Lanesboro Water Department. You’ll recall (how can you forget?) Swail’s bungling of Pittsfield roads this past winter. His negligence left roads nearly impassable, and his “legacy” can still be felt in the horrible conditions of the Shire City’s byways.

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Stale Bread, Lame Circuses

Once again, THE PLANET smoked the local daily, an outfit with the largest news-gathering team in the county. The fun of it is, we aren’t even trying.

The BB’s Jim Therrien was a tad late with his story on Swail’s departure, wasn’t he? Only by three weeks. In three weeks, you can negotiate lasting peace in the Middle East and build 63 Quonset huts. Please, though, don’t come down harshly on Jim. The “running scared” mentality that grips “Rug Row” at The Clock Tower requires scribes to toil with blinders on and arms straightjacketed, for you see, The BB only wants cheerful, “Hey, gang, let’s put on a show!” g-o-o-d news, the kind The Suits have ordered in their tireless efforts to swindle your tax dollars while distracting you with stale bread and lame circuses. Elsewhere, a clown staggering out the back of a station wagon faces disdain and boos. In Podunk, Mass., he’s performing “in the arts.” He’s “an economic engine.”

The BB will go after political corruption only outside of Pittsfield. They love it when a gun-loon goes crazy and mows down nine innocent churchgoers in the South. Ditto on a story like the New York prison break. If it involves Pittsfield payola, however, The Clock Tower board room brings out the three monkeys who see, hear, and speak no evil.

Medium Rare

The point goes way beyond an incompetent highway manager lightening the taxpayer’s burden by leaving town. Rather, it’s about the media’s role in public service. When the game is on the level, the press serves as The Fourth Estate, holding the other three to accountability. Every media outlet that conveys news and commentary, such as this one, owes it to its readers and to the public at large to pursue the news fearlessly, objectively, and doggedly.

Fearlessness: It won’t back down in the face of pressure from the Big Shots.

Objectivity: It will follow the story where the information and evidence lead. A warning of “Don’t look behind that curtain” should quicken the journalist’s look behind the drapes.

Dogged: It will face many obstacles ranging from bribes to threats. When these come, one must remain immoveable. THE PLANET alone among media remains unbought and unbossed. We sell no ads. We charge no subscriptions. We present the news and our commentaries freely, without interference, as a public service.

The funny thing is that this isn’t even our full-time work. Our paying gigs demand much more time and energy. The point here is that if we — one man, a fat Rolodex, and a lot of sources — can consistently scoop everyone else without trying, think of what the local daily could do with the same editorial philosophy.

This town would be cleaned up within a year.

As it is, the good folks of the city and county are stuck with a newspaper that doesn’t sell but sells out. Subscribers of The BB are pulling out in a number matched only by the apathy that has gripped the electorate. Soon, no one will subscribe and hardly anyone will vote.

And that’s just the way The Suits want it.

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“Afflicted Sense thou kindly dost set free, / Oppress’d with argumental tyranny, / And routed Reason finds a safe retreat in thee.” — Alexander Pope, “On a Fan of the Author’s Design,” VI, (1732).

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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