Top News From the Western Carolinas--a periodic look at major news stories from the Piedmont and mountains of western North and South Carolina:
A Spartanburg, SC mail carrier was caught red-handed allegedly dumping mail into the trash--an act for which he could face significant federal charges:
http://www.wspa.com/midatlantic/spa/news.apx.-content-articles-SPA-2008-06-17-0011.html
A Greenville County, SC woman who was once a victim of sexual assault is now a major advocate for women who are attacked:
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/NEWS01/80616023/1004&referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL
A North Carolina state trooper who was shot on I-40 in Haywood County has died:
http://www.wlos.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/wlos_vid_874.shtml
Charlotte, North Carolina education officials issue a report on disciplinary actions within the area's public schools:
http://www.wbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8514477&nav=menu1434_3
A report issued by the National Association of Homebuilders shows how crucial new home construction is to the economy of Spartanburg County, SC:
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080617/NEWS/806170309/1112&title=Home_building_crucial_to_jobs__county_tax_base__report_finds
Showing posts with label WSPA-TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WSPA-TV. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Friday, April 06, 2007
Cheerleader Sex Scandal Meeting Drags On
Ware Shoals, SC (TLS). Jane Blackwell, principal of Ware Shoals High School and a central figure in the investigation of the cheerleader sex scandal involving coach Jill Moore, is still meeting behind closed doors at this hour with the school board.
Blackwell had requested the meeting after the Board offered her a chance to tell her side of the story after having been charged with obstruction in the police investigation of former cheerleader coach Jill Moore. The meeting today is key in Blackwell's attempt to keep her job as principal of Ware Shoals High School.
Initially the meeting was open to the public. However, school board officials, and their attorney, had informed the local news media that the meeting would go behind closed doors if news cameras were turned on for Blackwell's testimony.
Local CBS News affiliate WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, SC, chose to ignore the directive of the Board, stating that they had a clear legal right to roll the cameras during a public meeting. At this point, the Board chair and attorney promptly ended the public meeting and took it behind closed doors, at the request of Blackwell.
WSPA-TV rolled out its apologists from legal authorities, law professors, and the like, in order to bolster its contention that it had a legal right to put on camera all of the testimony in a meeting that is 'public.' The law states that in public meetings cameras are allowed.
However, it would seem to us that this is yet another case of a news media outlet allowing a 'legal right' to trump common sense.
This case involves minors. Minors are given protection from having their names published or broadcast in legal matters, particularly when so far there are only allegations and not proven facts established in a court of law. Blackwell's testimony today would no doubt involve the identities of the students who were allegedly part of the actions of former cheerleader coach Jill Moore, who allegedly had a sexual affair with a student and took female cheerleaders to a local motel for sex with two National Guardsmen.
The nature of the facts in this case are so sensitive that prudence, one would think, would dictate discretion on the part of news outlets. Having the legal right to do something and choosing to do it under highly questionable circumstances are two separate issues. WSPA-TV should have turned off the cameras.
Many observers came to the meeting today because they have children in Ware Shoals High School. Many of these took the day off from work to attend. Yet they were deprived of hearing Blackwell's side of the story due to the misguided recklessness on the part of WSPA News. Because of WSPA, these parents and family members were barred from the meeting.
It seems to us that WSPA-TV owes an apology to the persons it inconvenienced today by its dogged determination to ignore prudence in order to 'assert its legal rights.'
So far, today's meeting has been ongoing for 9 hours. We will not know what was said in that meeting. The School Board will not reach a decision concerning Jane Blackwell's job until the next meeting of the Board on April 16.
Blackwell had requested the meeting after the Board offered her a chance to tell her side of the story after having been charged with obstruction in the police investigation of former cheerleader coach Jill Moore. The meeting today is key in Blackwell's attempt to keep her job as principal of Ware Shoals High School.
Initially the meeting was open to the public. However, school board officials, and their attorney, had informed the local news media that the meeting would go behind closed doors if news cameras were turned on for Blackwell's testimony.
Local CBS News affiliate WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, SC, chose to ignore the directive of the Board, stating that they had a clear legal right to roll the cameras during a public meeting. At this point, the Board chair and attorney promptly ended the public meeting and took it behind closed doors, at the request of Blackwell.
WSPA-TV rolled out its apologists from legal authorities, law professors, and the like, in order to bolster its contention that it had a legal right to put on camera all of the testimony in a meeting that is 'public.' The law states that in public meetings cameras are allowed.
However, it would seem to us that this is yet another case of a news media outlet allowing a 'legal right' to trump common sense.
This case involves minors. Minors are given protection from having their names published or broadcast in legal matters, particularly when so far there are only allegations and not proven facts established in a court of law. Blackwell's testimony today would no doubt involve the identities of the students who were allegedly part of the actions of former cheerleader coach Jill Moore, who allegedly had a sexual affair with a student and took female cheerleaders to a local motel for sex with two National Guardsmen.
The nature of the facts in this case are so sensitive that prudence, one would think, would dictate discretion on the part of news outlets. Having the legal right to do something and choosing to do it under highly questionable circumstances are two separate issues. WSPA-TV should have turned off the cameras.
Many observers came to the meeting today because they have children in Ware Shoals High School. Many of these took the day off from work to attend. Yet they were deprived of hearing Blackwell's side of the story due to the misguided recklessness on the part of WSPA News. Because of WSPA, these parents and family members were barred from the meeting.
It seems to us that WSPA-TV owes an apology to the persons it inconvenienced today by its dogged determination to ignore prudence in order to 'assert its legal rights.'
So far, today's meeting has been ongoing for 9 hours. We will not know what was said in that meeting. The School Board will not reach a decision concerning Jane Blackwell's job until the next meeting of the Board on April 16.
Friday, March 30, 2007
State Harasses Mother of Overweight Boy
Columbus, NC (TLS). Joyce Painter, a resident of Polk County, North Carolina, in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, finds herself in a nightmare with the state concerning her 10-year-old son. Painter, who has multiple health problems and is in a wheelchair, is under the threat of losing her son unless he 'loses weight.'
I kid you not.
The Department of Human Services of the State of North Carolina sent a social worker to investigate Painter after an anonymous source tipped them off due to the excessive weight of Painter's son.
The young boy weights 250 pounds.
But rather than investigate a possible physical malady that has led the boy to gain such weight, the state sends out its Gestapo to harass the mother instead.
I am very familiar with this part of the country, having spent part of my formative years in these mountains, particularly in nearby Saluda. This area is truly the garden spot of the earth and home to the finest human beings one can find anywhere on the planet. This is a very unlikely place to find the long tentacles of the food police who work for government entities that are as intrusive into the private lives of citizens as the KGB and the Gestapo.
Yet right here in God's country, the jackbooted government thugs are busy at work attempting to build a case of child abuse against Joyce Painter--all because her son weighs too much.
Painter has taken her son to numerous physicians seeking help. He has been placed on various and sundry eating programs designed to help him. So far, nothing has worked. Therefore, according to the state of North Carolina and their commie-nazis, the problem must be the mother who is obviously slipping the child treats, candies, and snacks he isn't supposed to have.
News sources report that the N.C. Department of Human Services sent an investigator to the local Ingle's Supermarket where Painter buys groceries. According to store employees, the investigator inquired as to whether or not Painter had bought candy, junk food, and other treats.
When Painter was informed of the investigator's visit to her supermarket, she stated that she felt like she has been tried and found guilty by social workers before her side of the story is adequately checked out. It was then that Painter called a local TV news station, WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, SC.
WSPA sent a reporter and news cameras to the Painter home in order to be present for a meeting Painter was supposed to have with a DHS Social Worker. When the state official arrived, she stated that she could not conduct the meeting with a camera crew present 'due to confidentiality.'
Yet DHS investigators paid no attention to Painter's 'confidentiality' when they approached her local grocery store and asked for information about her buying habits.
WSPA-TV reports that an employee of Ingle's Supermarket contacted them about the investigation, and stated that the DHS officials were not at all concerned about the boy or his mother, but were obviously attempting to build a case against Mrs. Painter.
The employee went further to describe the entire state-initiated witch-hunt as an 'outrage.'
We need a witch-hunt, alright. And it should start with the N.C. state government, particularly DHS.
This case is a perfect example of government power at work. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and those who have been brainwashed into thinking that government is the ultimate watch-dog over citizens obviously believe that it is entirely reasonable to harass, threaten, investigate, and even potentially remove a child from his mother, all because of the boy's weight.
The Liberty Sphere has warned time and again about the creeping crawl of government power. This is but one nightmarish result. The very same people who tell us we cannot buy and use handguns tell us we cannot smoke in public or eat at restaurants that serve up too much fat. But it never stops there. The food police are now part of the massive government surveillance of individual citizens who have no record of illegal activity.
Do you have an overweight child? Better be careful if you live in North Carolina. You could lose your child and be thrown in jail.
Let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? The social workers involved in the harassment of Joyce Painter should be immediately fired, period, end. An investigation should ensue into government corruption in the Department of Human Services. Heads need to roll over this one.
Just as we have seen with the massive corruption in the judicial system in North Carolina, apparently it does not end there. The poisonous tentacles of collectivism are reaching deep into the lives of private citizens with no end in sight, unless we stand up and put a stop it it NOW.
This outrageous behavior on the part of government elitists is ample proof that Jefferson was right about government. The smaller the better. And even then it is to be feared and kept in check.
I kid you not.
The Department of Human Services of the State of North Carolina sent a social worker to investigate Painter after an anonymous source tipped them off due to the excessive weight of Painter's son.
The young boy weights 250 pounds.
But rather than investigate a possible physical malady that has led the boy to gain such weight, the state sends out its Gestapo to harass the mother instead.
I am very familiar with this part of the country, having spent part of my formative years in these mountains, particularly in nearby Saluda. This area is truly the garden spot of the earth and home to the finest human beings one can find anywhere on the planet. This is a very unlikely place to find the long tentacles of the food police who work for government entities that are as intrusive into the private lives of citizens as the KGB and the Gestapo.
Yet right here in God's country, the jackbooted government thugs are busy at work attempting to build a case of child abuse against Joyce Painter--all because her son weighs too much.
Painter has taken her son to numerous physicians seeking help. He has been placed on various and sundry eating programs designed to help him. So far, nothing has worked. Therefore, according to the state of North Carolina and their commie-nazis, the problem must be the mother who is obviously slipping the child treats, candies, and snacks he isn't supposed to have.
News sources report that the N.C. Department of Human Services sent an investigator to the local Ingle's Supermarket where Painter buys groceries. According to store employees, the investigator inquired as to whether or not Painter had bought candy, junk food, and other treats.
When Painter was informed of the investigator's visit to her supermarket, she stated that she felt like she has been tried and found guilty by social workers before her side of the story is adequately checked out. It was then that Painter called a local TV news station, WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, SC.
WSPA sent a reporter and news cameras to the Painter home in order to be present for a meeting Painter was supposed to have with a DHS Social Worker. When the state official arrived, she stated that she could not conduct the meeting with a camera crew present 'due to confidentiality.'
Yet DHS investigators paid no attention to Painter's 'confidentiality' when they approached her local grocery store and asked for information about her buying habits.
WSPA-TV reports that an employee of Ingle's Supermarket contacted them about the investigation, and stated that the DHS officials were not at all concerned about the boy or his mother, but were obviously attempting to build a case against Mrs. Painter.
The employee went further to describe the entire state-initiated witch-hunt as an 'outrage.'
We need a witch-hunt, alright. And it should start with the N.C. state government, particularly DHS.
This case is a perfect example of government power at work. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and those who have been brainwashed into thinking that government is the ultimate watch-dog over citizens obviously believe that it is entirely reasonable to harass, threaten, investigate, and even potentially remove a child from his mother, all because of the boy's weight.
The Liberty Sphere has warned time and again about the creeping crawl of government power. This is but one nightmarish result. The very same people who tell us we cannot buy and use handguns tell us we cannot smoke in public or eat at restaurants that serve up too much fat. But it never stops there. The food police are now part of the massive government surveillance of individual citizens who have no record of illegal activity.
Do you have an overweight child? Better be careful if you live in North Carolina. You could lose your child and be thrown in jail.
Let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? The social workers involved in the harassment of Joyce Painter should be immediately fired, period, end. An investigation should ensue into government corruption in the Department of Human Services. Heads need to roll over this one.
Just as we have seen with the massive corruption in the judicial system in North Carolina, apparently it does not end there. The poisonous tentacles of collectivism are reaching deep into the lives of private citizens with no end in sight, unless we stand up and put a stop it it NOW.
This outrageous behavior on the part of government elitists is ample proof that Jefferson was right about government. The smaller the better. And even then it is to be feared and kept in check.
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