Vernonland

I have to hand it to the AJC. They never cease to amaze and incense me. For today’s lesson in high school journalism I direct your gaze to the Metro section of last Thursday, the 2nd of November. There you will find a fawning, vomit-inducing half page article about DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones’ birthday party. Just in case you were in danger of missing it, they headed the page with 158-point, Japs-Bomb-Pearl-Harbor-sized font. I’d bet what’s left of my hair that the New York Times front page headline on September 12, 2001 didn’t use font this big.

This article is repugnant on so many levels it’s difficult to get a handle on all of them. Let me just get this one out of the way up front: Why the f*** is this news!? Isn’t there some other media venue that could convey this, preferably one I can ignore with greater ease? Crack Whore and Politician Monthly comes to mind. Okay, I feel a little better getting that out of the way. As previously stated there’s a gi-normous headline. “Jones throws a big ball”. They sure know how to reel you in. The sub –headline, in standard 48-sized font beneath that is “DeKalb CEO praised as a communicator, prioritizer and fitness fan”. I suppose praising him as a media whore, micro-manager, racist, and shameless self-promoter in a way that would make Don King gasp would be redundant at this point.

In some Byzantine attempt to give the event depth and context the author starts out referencing Truman Capote’s 1966 ball to honor Katherine Graham. Relevance and dignity go right out with window by paragraph two with the gushing line “But who needs Truman when you’ve got Vernon”! Then there is simply the bizarre, which deserves to be quoted in its entirety. Without any setup or follow through referencing this paragraph appears 3/4 of the way into the piece:

"Animals cause more grief to politicians than humans do, said Lewis Regenstein, who leads the Interfaith Council for the Protection of Animals and Nature and wrote a book called ‘Replenish the Earth: The Teachings of the World’s Religions on Protecting Animals and Nature.’”

Okay, I’ll bite. What the f*** does that have to do with anything? It’s like some little journalistic dingle berry set adrift in a putrid swamp of an article.

In case I hadn’t been cc’d on all the memos cataloguing what a great humanitarian Vernon is there’s a recap. “Partiers also included an animal rights activist, a senior citizen in her wheel chair, a would-be amusement park developer and one of Jones’ gym buddies”. They had to send the animal rights activist because the spotted owls refused to be photographed with Vernon and the puppies were terrified.

There is one particular section that caught my attention. “Drinks, though, were aplenty – a cash bar, no taxpayer dollars involved. No one misbehaved. A few feet away stood a couple of uniformed county police officers.” So as a taxpayer the only thing I didn’t pay for was the booze. Hey Vernon, how much for the rest of the party and the overtime for those officers? Or did that amusement park developer friend of yours help pick up the check? In my wildest fantasy world someone from the media would ask you how many kids in DeKalb County don’t have health care or won’t graduate high school, and then in the same breath ask you how much the taxpayers of this county kicked in for your little get together. Some analogy about hell freezing over comes to mind. I missed the meeting where the media decided that Vernon shall henceforth be held blameless and unaccountable.

One last question, this one for Charles Yoo, the author of the piece. How could you? Is this why you went J school? Where you a willing participant in the long drawn out death of journalism, or did someone blackmail you? Chuck, there are other jobs in this world. Some of them actually mean something. Some of them won’t require a half-dozen shots of Jack Daniels to look yourself in the eye when it’s over.

Ares