For more than two weeks, foes of mountaintop-removal strip mining for coal have complained about the Lexington Herald-Leader's failure to cover (other than with a photograph) a big rally they had at the Kentucky state Capitol Feb. 14, featuring author Wendell Berry and many others. Today, the paper has an opinion piece by George Ella Lyon, another in a group of Kentucky authors who are fighting mountaintop removal.
She begins, "If John Updike spoke to a rally of 1,200 people on the icy steps of the Massachusetts state capitol, declaring himself ready, 'all other recourse having failed,' to get in the way of the legislature's refusal to save its own land and people from ruinous industrial practices, would The Boston Globe report it?"
Lyon notes that her local paper, the Harlan Daily Enterprise, covered the event "because Harlan countians Carl Shoupe, an underground miner, and Ronnie Banks, a 13-year-old student, spoke at the rally. I know Gov. Steve Beshear's plea for casinos was the big news that day, but there was room for a story about 1,200 Kentuckians at the Capitol to bet on the promise that their voice still counts." (Read more)
i was a reporter on the bham (ala) news many years ago, when the executive editor decreed that no integration news would go on page one. maybe he thought it would go away if it wasnt on p-1, maybe he thought the decision would please the Bham power structure (big mules) maybe some of both. and maybe it speeded up the drive for integration he was trying to slow and control.
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