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It seems that we can’t win, folks.
On one hand, public officials got mad at us when they believed we didn’t do our due diligence to confirm information.
On the other hand, ‘private citizens’ (who put themselves in the public eye over social media) went ballistic when we tried to do our due diligence by confirming information.
Here’s our latest “dilly of a pickle.”
The Baltimore Post received numerous phone calls from members of several Baltimore County community groups regarding a communiqué from the Upper Fell’s Point Improvement Association (UFPIA). According to a Facebook post, 35 ‘community leaders’ all signed a letter asking Baltimore City leaders to defund the Baltimore Police Department.
Please click on the image below to view the entire post
One of the community leaders who called us about that post referenced (almost in jest) the name listed at the top of the list. To many members of the local community, this man’s name is well known. Someone with that name has been in the news quite a bit speaking on behalf of his employer, particularly when asking Baltimore County leaders for public funds to increase police presence at his place of employment.
Yet, as the caller pointed out, here was the same person (or at least a person with the same name) publicly signing a petition to defund the Baltimore Police Department.
The Baltimore Post recognizes that a private citizen (or PC for the sake of this article) has a right to his own opinion. But we wanted to inquire whether this well-known individual was indeed the signer of the petition.
We also wanted to know if he was acting on behalf of his own individual PC-ness, or if he was taking a new stance on behalf of his employer.
This is where the story begins to take an ugly turn.
As the publisher of The Baltimore Post, I did what any good journalist would do: confirm the information directly with the source.
I sent an email to the PC in question, but our emails rarely get a response. So, because the community leaders who contacted us expressed urgency in learning of any possible impact to the taxpayers of Baltimore County, I felt a follow-up phone call was necessary.
Just to make it clear, the PC in question gave me his business card during a previous interaction and told me to contact him if I had something to ask or discuss.
To set the scene for the phone call, I thought I would share a clip from a film that captured the essence of investigative reporting:
The above scene shows a response to the journalistic questioning that is simply known as a meltdown.
I was the recipient of a very similar meltdown by the PC, who proceeded to give me a verbal thrashing.
We’ll get back to that later…
Not surprisingly, the PC’s meltdown led to more meltdowns among his crew of ‘community leaders,’ as evidenced by yet another Facebook post:
Please click on the images below to enlarge
It seems that these PCs chose the typical liberal left response to my inquiry: attack anyone who doesn’t blindly follow their ideology.
In doing so, they chose to click on an old website and draw over a screen grab of our current site.
Folks, we’re glad that putting a digital crayon into the hands of a liberal gave him something to do. We’ve heard that many of the ‘entitled bunch’ turn to coloring books in times of stress and crisis.
We can only assume, given their “everyone gets a trophy” mentality, that they hit the coloring books quite often.
Regarding the alleged harassment claim, we hardly think that an email and one follow-up phone call count as harassment. Quite frankly, if the liberal Baltimore Sun called the PC with questions about the social media post, we’re quite sure he would have been thrilled to tell his story and get his group of ‘community leaders’ in the media spotlight.
But because a non-liberal news site was on the other end of the phone, suddenly he and his gang belittle yours truly and claim that I harassed them.
It seems their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
In part two of this story, the Post will reveal the comments the PC made to us during his meltdown (or tantrum), as well as the response from the UFPCI regarding said meltdown.
Additionally, we will let you know how several political leaders responded to the concerns shared with us by county taxpayers. However, those responses vary depending upon whether or not the recipients actually understood our specific request for comment.
Stay tuned, folks. We will be right back after a brief intermission, during which no crayon usage will take place.
