“'I'm afraid we don't believe everything you tell us,” Hardy said. There was deep sadness in his voice. “Not that I ever accepted everything you told us. Priests hear a lot of lies. But we knew you were hiding something.'” –-Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye pg 533.
Since the The Mockingbird's first report on rape and other sexual abuse in the Fairfield County County jail and the resultant cover up, the powers that be have pushed back. Despite claiming in an interview with ABC 6 that the investigation was closed, Sheriff Dave Phalen repeated called family members of sources for our story demanding to speak to them within 48 hours of our first publication.
At first it was pretty funny: 30% of Republican voters would bomb the make-belief kingdom in Aladdin. Cosmopolitan Europeans and smug New York liberals guffawed over the headlines – the GOP base is so ignorant and warlike that they want to blow up a place that doesn’t exist because it sounds Arabic.
There is a great deal to be said about Baltimore. A human rights reporter can write a dozen stories. My fact based dis-assembly of the lies from mainstream media sources, the stories told by the police and the aspirations of the politicians will be out soon. This editorial needed to be written now. I've been sitting on some of this for decades, and it is not opinion. This is experience.
The Mockingbird is a New Media project based in Columbus Ohio. We intend to provide the best investigative, arts and culture reporting in our area.
Columbus is a great international city. Our ATMs have nearly as many languages as number keys. People from all over the world live, work and study here. Our news should reflect our community. The Mockingbird will provide local, state and international news. Columbus is a globally connected community.
A friend once asked me if I was going to find the next Edward Snowden. I told him, as the government well knows, you don't find Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden chooses you. A whistleblower wants to remain free. A whistleblower wants a media organization that will take a story public. These two desires are often in tension with each other. We have an app for that.