Local Paper Tarnishes Small Town
Front-page story attacks city
![[ Image: Humorously cropped portion of the front-page article: 'Columbia Basin Era Sewer' ]](http://perishablepress.com/press/wp-content/images/2007/small-town/tarnished-town_.jpg)
Central Washington — The Columbia Basin Herald continues to describe Quincy as “stampeded by gang members, teeming with teenage pregnancies, constant shootings, stabbings, drugs and excessive consumption of booze.”
They printed the story — believe it or not — on the front page.
“Quincy is also known as ‘Q-town,’” the Columbia Basin Herald, a regional newspaper, claims. “It is overpopulated by gang members and individuals of hispanic decent who often believe they are of african background. Smoking marijuana is very popular and is often practiced by all age groups in the area.”
The Herald refuses to apologize and continues to run the story at its website.
“Quincinians like to use the phrase ‘lets pound em,’ which translates to drinking alcoholic beverages excessively usually by minors,” the Herald announced. The article then continues by proclaiming the “town’s abundance of robberies.”
Rightfully upset, “Quincy Mayor Dick Zimbelman said Monday he wants criminal charges filed against those responsible and asked the city’s attorney to take action.”
“It’s just not right,” said Dick. “It’s too easy … to post malicious content.”
The Herald then continues the article by insulting it’s home town of Moses Lake, Washington:
…Moses Lake is the worst place in the world … it’s nothing but a mud hole…
To soften the blow, the Herald article concluded by admitting that “we’re not an authoritative source.”
Maybe you’re deliberately spoofing the news article you linked to, but when I read it, it didn’t actually say anything negative about the town. Rather, Wikipedia vandalism was in question…
Of course it’s a spoof! Perhaps a sad attempt at delivering a point, but worthwhile nonetheless (in my opinion, anyway).
I found the original article absolutely hilarious, as did several friends and fellow employees. I just had to share it, but wanted to do so in an interesting way.
I realize I am perpetuating the news, but nobody would have heard such negativity about Quincy if it weren’t for the local paper.
Anyway, just an experiment.. We now continue with our regularly scheduled programming..
D’oh! I guess I should have trusted that my intuition was right.. “Maybe you’re deliberately spoofing…”
But yes, get back to sharing awesome PHP & Apache goodnesses! :D