On A Personal Note

Today's Chamber of Commerce meeting was in fact enjoyable. I counted a little more than 20 people there and was informed they usually have 4 people in a normal meeting. So once again, to the naysayers, every one was quite pleased.

I was especially pleased because I felt at home and not overwhelmed with too many people and Chamber members made me feel especially comfortable. I should add, it always cracks me up when someone like the Fat Man calls out to all 5 of his readers and makes it sound like I'll be bombarded at trials and or meetings like this with a bunch of haters.

It seemed to me that one of the biggest questions being asked was confirmation on our stories. I say our, including the MSM. WBOC stated that they hold off breaking a story until they have confirmed the facts. I explained my situation with former Mayor Tilghman and Chief Webster. They refused to answer any calls from me and whenever I'd send an e-mail, (for the past 5 years) to the Mayor, it would instantly get kicked back saying it was being sent to the Chief of Police to scan for harassment. Mind you, never once did they respond to my messages.

I even explained this in Court when the Mayor's attorney asked if I had fact checked a particular story. I replied, NO. He said, so you ran a story you didn't confirm? YES. Do you do that often? YES. Why would you run a story without it being confirmed, don't you think that's reckless? NO! Why not? Because the Mayor refused to answer my calls or e-mail. Flabbergasted, her attorney had nothing more to say.

One thing is for sure. Everyone who visited that meeting this morning walked away with a whole new vision of just what Salisbury News is all about. I have received comments from many who attended. Here are a couple just as an example:

"Do you have email addresses for the organizers? I’d like to thank them for putting the meeting together this morning. Hope the clown didn't give you too much crap. I shook your hand in front of her just to show her people in ties appreciated your appearance this morning.
THANKS!"

"Just a note to let you know that I think you did well this morning at the meeting. As I was walking into the parking lot, one of the visitors noted that a major difference in the presentations was the "passion". You appear to live and breathe what you do as contrasted to the MSM representative who is merely doing his job."

"Keep up the good work. Keep bringing to the table the issues that the populace should care about.....and let both (or all) sides have their say. Remember the key issue is that BLOGs are by definition "opinions", not necessarily confirmed facts. As long as there is no libel or slander, anything can be on the table."

Greg Latshaw from the Daily Times said he felt I did a better job than WBOC. He went on to say that while he may not have agreed with everything I said, he understands why I said it. He also sympathized with my not being able to confirm certain stories and had no idea I was up against a brick wall with some people.

Getting back to the facts and other sources of MSM stating they never tell a story unless it is confirmed. Well, for what it's worth. I know for a fact that WBOC, (for example) reads Salisbury News day in and day out. We publish a story and 10 minutes later my source calls me back saying someone from WBOC just called and said we just read on Salisbury News blah, blah, blah, can you tell us about it. The next thing you know the same story that came out of nowhere is then on WBOC.

Beyond that, are they saying that ALL of them didn't cover the Salisbury Zoo animal death issue because they couldn't confirm it? I stated in this meeting that I had asked the Daily Times, WBOC & WMDT to simply go down to the Zoo and count the animals. Jim Rapp, (former Zoo Director) claimed they had 500 animals. Then 450, then for days the numbers kept dropping all the way down to somewhere around 175. I continued to tell the MSM this was a flat out lie, they only had around 125 animals. Granted, I fought like hell to get closer to the truth and I did appreciate their challenging Rapp about the numbers but not once did they go down to the Zoo and count the animals for themselves, yet they claim they fact check and do investigative reporting.

They constantly rely on what a Department Head tells them and if they're wrong, they can simply blame it on them. HOWEVER, before Salisbury News came along, NOTHING was ever wrong. Everyone just believed what the MSM fed them and that was that.

There are hundreds of these same kind of stories but I ask, if they can't confirm it, do they then NOT tell the story? The answer in most cases is, no, they do tell the story. However, they do so by stating only what they have been told. To me, this is NOT reporting. The most recent case and point is what I brought up in my speech. To this date, the Daily Times refuses to publish an article about the Wicomico BOE recent decision on taxpayers footing the bill for health insurance for retired Teachers. Again, if they don't tell you what's going on, you'll hopefully never know about it.

Here's what they don't realize. You see, since Salisbury News brought it out to every one's attention, the word is on the street that it can be seen on Salisbury News. The next thing you know, more and more people come to this Site, (this happens on many different daily topics) and Salisbury News continues to grow by word of mouth every single day.

WBOC and the Daily Times love to talk about how they get 3,000,000 "page views" every month. Hell, I'll bet you good money more people are talking about Salisbury News than WBOC or the Daily Times. A friend said to me that they don't even call it Salisbury News any more. Most of the time they'll say, did you see this or that on the Blog today?

Anyhow, clearly we're an influence on politics but we're also a major influence in every one's day to day life here in Salisbury. Mr. Creamer mentioned today that they normally have 4 people in their monthly meeting. Because many are interested, because Salisbury News is influential, more than 20 people showed up today at 7:30 AM, (which is not easy to do) to learn more about how we can help benefit the future of local politics. Mr. Creamer also stated that this was the very first time in his 20 years with the executive board that the Daily Times has ever shown up at a meeting.

Well Folks, Joe Albero, Salisbury News and our Contributors are not only influential, (like it or not) we also sell papers for the Daily Times. That's quite alright too, somebody has to keep Shanie employed.

Again, I/we appreciate the opportunity to express our thoughts on this topic. I hope we've answered many questions people might have on the Blogs and we welcome the opportunity to sit face to face with anyone on such matters as long as it is a civil environment.