Joe Killian's Yellow Journalism

Yesterday I posted  A Piece Of Her Mind, a letter by forner Greensboro City Councilwoman T Diane Bellamy-Small on the yellow journalism written by Joe Killian of the Greensboro News & Record.

At the time I had not yet read the piece Ms Bellamy-Small was referring to and only posted it because it was recommended by a trusted EzGreensboro.com team member.

It was this morning when reading The Tinfoil Hat Brigade by Under Siege that I realized that I was also subject of the same hit piece as Ms Bellamy-Small. Fec ends his critism of Killian with the following:

"Using front page top of the fold positioning to impugn the local bloggers is more about protecting Killian’s reputation than the mayor’s. Killian is paid to commit yellow journalism, whereas Billy has published an enormous amount of content for over ten years without significant income.  Sure he’s over the top and often wrong, but the First Amendment guarantees that right.  And in a local environment where the media increasingly refrains from reporting important news, Billy’s blog has become required reading.

So, you have our local daily coming down hard on the bloggers for the perceived slight of one person.  Trust me, there a lot of people who have problems with Killian and some of them are elected officials."

 
 
It’s obvious Killian wrote a paid, political hit piece. And its obvious that what myself and others with blogs and social media are doing is scaring the wits out of the status quo and local main stream media. Keep up the good work, all of you. 

And on this part: " ...Billy has published an enormous amount of content for over ten years without significant income." Billy has earned zero income from his political writings. On that I give you my word. If I made any money I'd be sued for every dime of it.


What I find fascinating is that not once in my series, Joe Killian and the Dark Money Trail did I ever accuse Mayor Vaughan of trying to kill or have Devin King killed. The closest I came to accusing anyone of violence, and it isn’t an outright accusal, would be what I said about Kotis and his online argument with King. After all, Kotis’ reactions to online arguments are well known and sometimes violent.

Full Disclosure: I verified to Kotis the address of Jeff Martin's business the day Kotis went to Martin's business to "talk" to Martin. A talk that ended up in a fight. I've done many things of which I am not proud.


But I did accuse Killian and the Greensboro Police of covering up the story and it appears with the publishing of his latest hit piece that I'm right on target.

Killian outright lied. There is in-fact one more suspect whose name I never mentioned but because both GPD and local media failed to do their jobs that suspect will never be proven innocent or guilty. And we'll never know if Devin King was telling the truth or not as it was he who first suggested that someone tried to have him killed.

I never accused anyone, all I ever tried to do was follow leads and get police and media to investigate what was obviously a bungled police investigation from the start.

Ask yourself this: How is it that the insurance investigator "found" the missing bumper cover from Devin King's car 2 weeks after the crash when Greensboro Police had been unable to find the bumper cover all along?

That's the question Joe Killian never sought to answer. The question I e-mailed Cheif Wayne Scott repeatedly throughout the entire time I was writing Joe Killian and the Dark Money Trail.

That's right, I leave trails too. And if Greensboro had real journalists instead of Joe Killian they would be submitting public information requests and following those trails.