THE SCRANTON NEWS says nobody asks pampered U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. hard questions about gender, war, abortion or other life and death issues.
THE SCRANTON NEWS says nobody asks coddled U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright hard questions about guns or anything else.
THE SCRANTON NEWS says nobody asks new Lackawanna County Commissioner Debi Domenick if she will arrange for a municipal fire truck to show up at your house for your birthday party the way she did for her child’s birthday party.
You get the picture.
Say hello to THE SCRANTON NEWS.
Northeastern Pennsylvania media does only so much aggressive reporting and commentary. Content in The Times-Tribune is often lazy, timid and predictable, dull, shallow news stories and cute columns by clerks of fact that lack depth no matter how many journalism awards tedious editorial management claims. Local television network news affiliates seem more interested in cat and dog survivor stories than tales of survival from combat veterans suffering PTSD and on the verge of suicide.
In response to a suggestion I made about news coverage last summer, a longtime local editor I’ve known for years told me “You should start a newspaper.”
THE SCRANTON NEWS is a better idea.
Ever since stepping away from day-to-day journalism when frightened company men and women fired me at WILK News Radio in 2017 for fighting Trump white nationalists for two years leading up the 2016 presidential election, I’ve put most of my words into writing novels and short stories. Two-fisted fiction stems from fact so I never lack plot, characters or chaos in the pages of my work.
But, driven by societal madness both local and national, I have occasionally written and posted a news blog on the bloodredsyrah.com website, an online space usually dedicated to all things “Blood Red Syrah,” my first novel published in 2018 by Avventura Press.
Look for a change in the site in upcoming months, an expanded author’s page where I’ll add to my unique persona as an outlaw novelist by including outlaw journalist status on my current resume, a role I’ve played for decades better than anybody in hard coal country.
Look for updates on “Paddy’s Day in Trump Town,” my new novel to be published in late summer or early fall. The book dismembers the Irish-American community in Wilkes-Barre that helped dump Trump into the White House. This abnormal tale takes you inside the Irish Guys social club and their zany re-election efforts that compound a dangerous cultural apocalypse of racism, sexism, violence and hatred that defines Northeastern Pennsylvania politics and everyday despair. Upon publication, I expect Trump supporters everywhere to lose what’s left of their tiny minds.
Also look to my new online author’s page for regular political disorder, what I call societal self-defense from right-wing attacks against logic, reason and decency. As part of THE SCRANTON NEWS I plan to post antagonistic videos and surprise on-camera interviews with local, state and national elected and appointed officials whether they like it or not. Mostly I’m talking electric narrative and impolite commentary about sacred political blowhards like Casey, Cartwright, Domenick and others who news people rarely, if ever, challenge for practicing political no business as usual at taxpayer expense.
Just the thought of electric ideas sends shivers up and down my juiced spinal cord. After all, Scranton is called the Electric City, although I never hear anybody call us that, just as nobody I know in town calls former Vice President Joe Biden and dull candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination “Uncle Joe.”
That’s why I concocted THE SCRANTON NEWS, an uncivil, always partisan media source, an enemy of the people who fight to keep us silent and fail to keep the best of us down.
A few months ago Lackawanna County backward deputy sheriffs refused to let me carry my smart phone into the courthouse because I didn’t have what they deemed an acceptable media credential. Many of America’s increasing number of independent journalists lack mainstream press credentials. No such government credential exists in Pennsylvania anyway.
A Times-Tribune reporter carried her phone into the courtroom and checked it periodically during the trial. I could not text, Google information, or make calls during breaks from the hallway outside Judge Julia Munley’s courtroom. Deputies locked up my phone until I left the building. I tried to explain how I was as much a journalist as any reporter they let into the building carrying so-called credentials and presented a business card with a working link to an updated website and blog. But dim armed agents of the county police state deemed me unworthy, a clear violation of my First Amendment rights, a driving force in my life and cornerstone of the Constitutional republic I once won a national journalism award for serving.
I’m even a decades-long active member of the Philadelphia Pen & Pencil Club, America’s oldest press club. I have personal references, too, made up of some of this nation’s most respected journalists, including at least one Pulitzer Prize winner.
Just in case government gatekeepers get confused, my new press credential will say THE SCRANTON NEWS in all capital letters.
You are now officially on notice.
THE SCRANTON NEWS will bust your chops, but only if you deserve it.
Free speech is an equal opportunity annoyer.