When The Shopper Stops, They Just Keep Going

Last week, we pointed out the Shopper got one right. If you are around me long enough. You will hear me repeat an old saying that I heard along time ago. I normally say it at least once every couple of days. The saying is "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile."

Well, last week evidently, the Shopper was the blind squirrel that happened to find the real aspect of journalism. As Larry Van Guilder, a shopper editorial writer allowed Mike Lowe to respond and included Lowe's reaction to his editorial column in the total column. I am sure Brian's Blog exposing the errors of the Shoppers ways with Moxley Carmichael probably had something to do with it.

This week, Larry Van Guilder is retracting something that he printed last week. It appears that last week he quoted an inaccurate statement made by Cathy Quist, aspiring General Sessions Court Judge about a private citizen and her employment status with a private company. However, Van Guilder did not obtain a retraction from Quist. So, maybe the lawyers can just lawyer up and get Quist to apologize and correct her inaccurate statement.

Here is the Larry Van Guilder snippet.

‘Not the boss’

Last week we quoted Circuit Court Clerk Cathy Quist who called the wife of Brian Barnard “an executive for Cigna.” Barnard, of course, is Knox County’s benefits manager who served on the committee which selected Cigna to service the county’s self-insured health plan. (Although Barnard abstained from the actual vote.)

He wrote to say that his wife, Judy, is “in fact, a salaried middle manager with Cigna, a ‘business project senior specialist.’ She is neither an executive nor an officer,” he said.

OK.

BTW, I think Larry Van Guilder is a pretty good guy. I think he just gets steered in the wrong direction on writing his editorials by the "tabloid bully girl" and the "tabloid bully editor girl". They don't tell him it is necessary to call to verify inaccurate statement(s) made by an individual with special interest(s).

A phone call to Cigna, would have verified what the ladies position within Cigna is and her husband would not have had to contact Van Guilder and then Van Guilder would not have had to correct an inaccurate report of an inaccurate statement.

Had Van Guilder looked at his notes from the September 17, 2007 County Commission Committee meeting or researched Brian's Blog for this post. He would have seen that the ladies husband had already made a public statement as to what his wife's position was at Cigna.

Lazy reporters, You can't live with them. You can't run a tabloid without them.

Cathy Quist, has informed the main stream media back a month or so ago (in an interview) that she doesn't read blogs. It is so too bad that she doesn't, because had she read our report on September 17, 2007, she would not have made an inaccurate statement about a private citizen and her work status.