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The Editor's Log

Covering Skip Alston, Part II

I don’t know if this is a trend or not, but Scott Yost at The Rhino seems to hand over his typewriter to Skip Alston these days. For the second time in less than a month, he’s let the chairman of the county commissioners expound at length without bringing any of the Rhino’s celebrated skepticism.

This time, Skip says that a change in the format of the annual State of the Community luncheon from politician speeches to questions from the audience is political. “I think they’re trying to control the message,” Alston reportedly said.

Normally, moving from speeches in which only one person speaks to a give-and-take with members of the community is considered de-controlling the message by opening it up to other voices, but far be it from the media to question such a statement.

What actually got my attention was how a June forum on leadership sponsored by Action Greensboro was incorrectly characterized by Yost as being put on by the News & Record.

“Alston also said that, to him, the new format of the State of the Community address was reminiscent of a meeting earlier this summer when the News & Record and area businessmen joined together and held a town hall-style meeting ostensibly to discuss the proper role of county commissioners and city council members in county and city government – however, everyone in attendance knew the real purpose was for some area businessmen and editors to call Alston and Vice Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Steve Arnold to the mat for what some see as Alston and Arnold’s extensively heavy-handed role in the day-today running of Guilford County government.”

(Yes, that sentence is more than 100 words long.) As the Rhino certainly knows, we had nothing to do with the forum, other than writing about it. And there were no editors on the panel – although John Alexander, a professor of leadership at Elon, was an editor 20 years ago, and I doubt he calls himself one now – and there weren’t any businessmen on the panel.