Is it too difficult a controversy for the local media to grasp?
Or is the local media too entwined with the good ol' boy network that runs these parts, that the local media accepts whatever the local powers that be, tell the local media, that this is the way it is? No need to investigate.
Sadly, this sort of seems to be the case.
The Paradise Center is an independent entity with no connection to the powers that be.
Except for its connection to THE PEOPLE.
One of the local people who has been appalled by the Paradise Center Scandal asked the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the following....
"There must be a good reason that the S-T is ignoring this story ... right? It's hard to believe there is no story and that it's just an internal personnel matter. The public trust expects that our newspaper will not allow the "Fort Worth Way" to avoid "afflicting the comfortable." Are you even looking into this?"
To which one of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's stooges replied with the following...
"I read the blog. Did not see any discussion of how the county commissioners or MHMR board members have explained the decision. If MHMR funded the center and carried the liability, then MHMR should have been running it all along."
The first name, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's stooge, rhymes with Dud. And so he is.
Had the Dud done even the most cursory of looking at the facts, as exposed on this very blog, that the Dud claimed he looked at, he would have learned that MMHR did not fund the Paradise Center. It did not carry the liability for the Paradise Center.
The Paradise Center is an independent, private, non-profit charity operation.
MHMR, a government entity, took over the building that the Paradise Center operated out of, because MHMR wanted to monetize the operation. The Paradise Center board objected to this proposed change in the relationship between MHMR and the Paradise Center. And so the scandal erupted.
If Fort Worth had a real newspaper, like the Washington Post or the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Paradise Center Scandal would have long ago entered the public consciousness as an offensive outrage perpetrated by corrupt officials.
But.
That is not the Fort Worth Way.
For an interesting discussion about the Fort Worth Way and the problems that arise when a city, like Fort Worth, lacks having a legitimate newspaper, that acts as the Fourth Estate, with the Fourth Estate being a sort of extra branch of the system that makes the system work, by exposing wrongdoing, trying to right wrongs, go watch TRIP's "Up a Creek" movie documentary. In "Up a Creek" you will hear the Fort Worth Star-Telegram dysfunction discussed.
