MSNBC host Rachel Maddow recently urged Americans to subscribe to their local newspapers so that they can have the staff and time to send reporters to cover the boring, hours-long local government meetings.
Sounds glamorous, doesn’t it?
Boring reality aside, sometimes really important stuff happens at those meetings, as it did in Watauga County, North Carolina, where the Republican-controlled elections board is trying to redistrict the area, combining several largely Democratic-leaning districts into a single mega-district which would become one of the largest voting precincts in the state.
The premise is that this move would save money by consolidating polling places, but the local elections administrator told the board on Aug. 12 that that wasn’t the case. In fact, she told them that because the budget already included all the polling places, closing some before the next election would save no money at all.
The Republican members of the board then, in subsequent meetings, attempted to remove those comments from the official minutes, saying they weren’t germane. Maddow labels it a case of trying to remove something critical of their plans from history in the hopes no one will notice.
The Winston-Salem Journal noticed, though, and has all the details here.
Maddow, obviously and notably left leaning, jumped on the story and retold it on her broadcast on Aug. 21, sparking general outrage of the type generally created by cable news stories. I’m not going to jump in on the politics here other than to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Maddow’s message about local newspapers.
Watch it here:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The message