Basically Williams says to read blogs if you want political coverage, not the News Journal. Patrick Jackson's Dean story and Robin Brown's on Castle supports that view.In a surprisingly candid take on local political coverage Williams admits that the NJ's monopoly on political coverage has been broken. He points to Celia Cohen's story on Richard Korn and
Mike and
Dana's coverage of the early stages of the Feroce Campaign as evidence that the political information vacuum (formed by the NJ's shortsighted decision to "significantly cut back" its staffing in Dover and shift dollars to Ryan Cormier's drinking habit) has been filled.
Although Williams takes a dig at blogs in general in the closing sentence of the piece quoting the USAToday statement that blogs are "a cesspool of plagiarism". That sentence cannot be taken as anything other than ironic given the two thirds of the article Williams devotes to flat out ripping off Celia Cohen.
As if to support Williams thesis, Patrick Jackson's coverage of the Dean completely misses
THE STORY. It was clear to me that Dean's appearance marked the begining of the end of machine party politics in Delaware.
You only needed to see Ed Freel, the ultimate Dem insider, wandering around bewildered while insurgent candidates like Dennis Spivack, Pat Williams, Richard Korn and John Kowalko held court to know that the barbarians are at the gate. Patrick missed that and focused on the party mechanics. Although, to his credit, he got Terry Strine on the record supporting the Democrats.
In the other politcal story of the day that supports (or possible helped frame) Williams opinion, Robin Brown gave Michael Castle a long languid tongue kiss. While war rages on and Castle's complete impotence in Congress has become genuine cause for concern, Brown decides to type up Castle's talking points. Rather than ask Mr. Castle the question that ALL OF DELAWARE is demanding to know; "Does Mr. Castle regret supporting Bush?" Brown plays stenographer while Castle throws out some 1970's vintage "happy talk".
"Delaware 'does things better' than other states". Whoop-freaking-eee!!!!