Yellow Journalism Is Alive and Well
POTTSTOWN, PA – The bygone era of yellow journalism is alive and well in Pottstown no thanks to The Mercury and its (you fill in the blank) editor Nancy March.
If you don’t believe us, simply go online and read today’s Sound Off (and by all means don’t purchase the paper…because buying the paper will only starve off its impending bankruptcy).
Even though Pottstown School Board member Thomas Hylton was elected to office in 2009 through the misguided support of a scant 8% of the population, we’re lead to believe that almost half of today’s Sound Off commentors (8 out of 17) are giving glory and praise for the wisdomic miracle that is Tom Hylton.
Excuse us while we barf profusely (preferably on Tom Hylton and Nancy March).
What is this world coming to when hard-working taxpayers take the time to attend a local school board meeting, voice their concerns to the board, and get tarred and feathered by the local poor excuse of a newspaper and its anonymous pro-Tom Hylton online commenters?
And did we mention that the local newspaper in question has received close to $20,000 from Tom Hylton for 68 paid advertisements since the year he took office? And that dollar figure DOES NOT include the “cost-effective” 32-page advertising supplement cluster-bomb that insulted the collective intelligence of the tri-county area last week (which is estimated to have cost Hylton conservatively over $10,000).
You can’t expect a news source to provide unbiased information when that much money is exchanging hands.
And that’s the kind of crap we’re seeing in today’s print and online edition of The Mercury.
While Tom Hylton and his online posse love to bully and throw cyber stones at current board members and school board office candidates (and obviously flood the Sound Off voice mailbox with similar rantings), we have yet to hear from Tom Hylton’s school board candidates:
Avram Hammer, William Habekost, Dennis Wausnock, W. Ronald Williams and Michelle Porter (or as we like to refer to them: How Hylton Weasel-Words the Public).
You say you haven’t received any anonymous letters in your mailbox promoting Tom Hylton’s candidates? Well…chances are if you read the online comments on The Mercury’s website, you’re already seeing their handiwork.
Our big question is…why is Tom Hylton spending tens of thousands of dollars to “provide information and ideas regarding school facilities” that he thinks would be useful? If the information is as useful as he claims, then why is he trying so hard, and spending so much money, to sway the public into believing his opinion?
And the next question would be…why has The Mercury become the personal public relations firm for Tom Hylton?
The Mercury and Tom Hylton…perfectly pathetic together.
You know, it’s hard to tell if the Mercury is really that corrupt, or if they are just being suckered in by Hylton’s self-serving ideology like most of the rest of the folks in Pottstown. On one hand, you would think that the Mercury staff would be in a postion to be more informed than the average citizen. Still, I would prefer to believe it’s the latter.
I have to wonder what to believe about an elected official that represents the people, the majority of them unable to spend that kind of money on anything but regular living expenses? I guess you could say that he is passionate about his beliefs. What kind of passion makes a person spend that kind of money? In my experience, spending that kind of money doesn’t account much more than attempting to oversaturate people with a single message. So, I think the question of what is he trying to sell becomes exceptionally valid.
Noting the relationship that has been formed between the person and newspaper in question makes this ongoing so-called positive press a situation to examine. As many have expressed, this isn’t a question of Freedom of Speech – it never has been. The question people are trying to get to the bottom of is what is the motive and is the motive or the perception of these actions becoming a school director?
I think not.
A person could suggest the base motive is trying to create a better Pottstown. I’ll admit that could be partially true, do others (and there are some) with the same means and resources go to these lengths to be heard? So then why does this one person stand alone to, consistantly, be heard – above all others? Why does, what should be, a local (unbiased) voice seem to slant in favor of a person paying, repeatedly, to be heard?
Are any of these actions governed by financial gain?
Many of the commentors accuse people of not having ideas to combat those presented by Mr. Hylton – ideas have been presented before and I can’t recall anyone saying all his ideas aren’t worth consideration. I remember people not offering ideas with the explaination that Mr. Hylton doesn’t like to compromise. It has been proven, in the past, that any attempt to question a portion of Hylton’s presentation leads only to a defensive reaction – thus not being able to discuss anything to reach a compromise.
The point is people are running out of ideas and time and money is getting short to help Pottstown take a step in the right direction. The more time that is wasted trying to outdo eachother or lay claim to a better plan is pointless. Resources are limited and risks will need to be taken. Heck, we might have to gamble and spend money to make something appear different to outsiders to signify a change and lure people to invest and consider living here. Nothing is sustainable without growth to the tax base.
We all need to consider what we are willing to invest in our town, in terms of local tax effort, to move to a better day. If the answer is nothing, then we’d all better get cleaning up the town (literally and figuratively) and convincing people it is a good place to live and/or raise a family. If we don’t provide appeal to the outside world, who will?
I don’t trust Mr. Hylton or the Mercury to “advertise” that, do you?
SavePottstown!! has just received the following comment from one of our registered users.
They attempted to post a comment to Sound Off and it was not posted. Folks, make sure when you attempt to post comments to Sound Off, that you save the text separately (in Word or as a text file) and make sure to note the time that you submitted the comment, so you can check to see whether your comment was bypassed.
We don’t see anything that would prevent a comment like this from getting posted at The Mercury, other than the fact that it is not a pro-Tom Hylton comment (and since when did that become a crime?).
If you have any comments that do not get posted to The Mercury, please forward them to us and we will post them here (as long as they’re acceptable comments to post).
Here’s the comment:
“What I find interesting is that only 8% of the voters elected Tom Hylton to the school board, but yet there are almost HALF of the Sound Off comments today singing his praises.
I find that highly suspect.
I expect to get labeled as a “hater” by those posting on this site because I’m not drinking the Kool Aid. And I agree – I HATE to see people take advantage of others through questionable and misleading tactics (like using several different email addresses to post the same politically hateful comments online). I HATE to see a person with an unlimited stream of income pumping tens of thousands of advertising dollars into a newspaper demanding to be heard above all others in their community.
When someone buys ad space (whether is be on the radio, TV or newspaper), they’re trying to sell you something.
What is Tom Hylton trying to sell the people of Pottstown?
And why is he spending so much time and money doing it – especially so close to next month’s primaries?
What’s at stake here? Someone’s reputation? Someone’s source of income? Someone’s self-perceived legacy? Is this really all about improving education for our children? Is it really about moving Pottstown forward? Is it really about lowering our taxes?
Or is it about resisting (dare I say hating?) change and keeping the status quo to the benefit of one person? If things stay the same, like some people would like, and the school district continues on its current path, who benefits?”
Hi guys,
It is not a crime to be opposed to Mr. Hylton’s ideas.
(FYI: Currently, there are two posts beneath Sound Off opposed to Mr. Hylton and three in favor.)
I checked all the archives for the post you’ve mentioned above and it does not exist anywhere in our system. It was not denied, it did not register for whatever reason.
It seems it was either a technical difficulty on our end, or the poster’s, but the evidence suggests it was not part of a vast Mercury conspiracy.
If I might be so bold as to suggest that, in the future, the best way to resolve such issue is to contact the on-line editor, Eileen Faust. She can check these things for you, rather than Save Pottstown which, not having access to that system, can, at best, only offer its best guess as to why it did not post.
As What Are You Fighting to Protect discovered recently, contact Eileen and you will at least get and answer and sometimes, win the argument.
She can be reached at efaust@pottsmerc.com
Since your registered user was wise enough to save its contents, he or she is welcome to re-submit it. If the problem continues, I would suggest contacting Eileen for answers.
Have a nice day.
Thank you Evan for your comments.
We see that the post did get posted. Our user contacted us and indicated that they had an older Mercury user ID, so that may have been an issue, and that they created a new user ID and that obviously did the trick.
We do like vast conspiracies…but unfortunately this seems to have been an non-conspiracy IT glitch.
I posted this on the Mercury website “From Pottstown Citizens for Responsible Government’s website: “Hylton has championed Pottstown as a model of sustainable development in his book, public television documentary, and in 450 talks given in 35 states, including one to the nation’s governors at their 2001 conference in Washington.”
And from Save our Lands, Save our Town’s website ” For presentations within 75 miles of Pottstown, Pennsylvania: $750 honorarium, plus travel. For presentations more than 75 miles from Pottstown, Pennsylvania:
$1,000 honorarium, plus travel and lodging.
What am I missing here? Without Pottstown, there would be no lectures? It looks like Pottstown is being used for personal gain.
SP, I read this online over at The Merc on Thurs night (as an online Sound Off comment) and think other SP readers will give this two thumbs up. The comment was posted by ElmerFudd and I thought it was a great post. With all credit to ElmerFudd, I think this sums up very nicely the problem that is Tom Hylton:
” GetReal said… “would you or someone PLEASE tell me how this man benefits from spending his own money and doing research on other options that are out there.”
Sure, I’ll tell you. It’s easy to understand if you know Tom Hylton. As I stated above it’s all about power and self-worship with him. He has influenced elections in Pottstown for years with his cockamamie newspaper editorials and his slick political fliers full of self serving half truths and misleading “facts”. The recent Mercury insert was not really about schools, and certainly not about the children who inhabit them. It was about the upcoming school board election.
Tom enjoys being in charge. He enjoys having followers – especially followers in local government who will do his bidding. He enjoy basking in the glow of his worshipers. And he will do or say anything to gain those those spoils, whatever the cost.
He is also his own biggest fan. I’m not making this stuff up. Just look at his record over time. In all the years Tom has been influencing local politics, has anyone EVER seen him support an idea that was not his own? Has any of it EVER been good for the town or its residents? It’s always been all about Tom and nothing else. For Tom, being in control, and basking in his own glory is well worth every penny of his wife’s retirement fund. “
Fantastic post eastender. Thanks for sharing ElmerFudd’s comment BBQ. I haven’t been over to the Merc to see them yet. I want to say that both of these comments hit the nail squarely on the head.
This morning, there is another comment in Sunday’s Sound Off, (I won’t copy it here because it is a long one), but it bears reading, because it is written by a senior citizen, the target of Hylton’s fear mongoring efforts, and is a rebuttal to a sound off calling Code Blue “arrogant”.
The posters name is: hmmmletmethinkabouthat
Interesting, I did a search over at the Mercury, “Tom Hylton”, it’s a search I have done many times over the past couple weeks, to check out recent comments. The articles about Code Blue calling for him to be dismissed are buried. The only way to access them, conveniently, is via the links here at SP. Very Interesting.
If you search tom hylton, and another topic like “school on High and evans” or Shade tree taxes you will find a lot of info that backs up what we are saying