“Tell us!” Mr. Dicker urged. <\/p>\n
Pretty exciting stuff. So who are the villains of this “plot for the pauperization of the people of the Adirondacks,” to quote Mr. Dicker? <\/p>\n
“The lead of this started with Nelson Rockefeller,” Lewis began. Which is pretty standard fare. <\/p>\n
The Republican governor has never been popular with those who disapprove of the Park Agency and its rules.<\/p>\n
Mr. Lewis then went on to blast Peter Paine from Willsboro, president of Champlain National Bank and one of the co-creators of the modern APA.<\/p>\n
All very fine and good, but it’s sort of old hat, ancient history. Those bones have been chewed pretty well since the 1970s<\/p>\n
Mr. Dicker wanted fresh meat: “We only have about three minutes, so get to the heart of it, if you would!”<\/p>\n
Then Mr. Lewis popped his guns at one of the true villains, the nefarious, the underhanded…NCPR?<\/p>\n
“They formed these charities and there are a number of them, and one of them sadly — and you better give them time — is Brian Mann, Ellen Rocco, and Martha Foley at North Country Public Radio. They’re in the middle of this. These charities draw from the same anonymous donors.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yikes. That’s pretty strong. Nonsense, of course, utterly ridiculous, but exciting.<\/p>\n
I always feel a little awkward responding to stuff like this. It’s just that silly. But I suppose it’s necessary to clarify a few points. <\/p>\n
1. Mr. Lewis is apparently convinced that NCPR is part of some cabal, but he has never questioned the accuracy of our reporting. He’s always welcome to do so.<\/p>\n
2. The largest source of income for North Country Public Radio is local memberships, from North Country people — the vast majority under $100. The second largest source of income are local businesses who purchase “underwriting” on our airwaves.<\/p>\n
3. Mr. Lewis is correct that some of our major donors are also donors to or members of environmental groups. We have a “firewall” between fundraising and our journalism that is completely impervious. There is no fudging of this line, none.<\/p>\n
4. I love complicated, thorny, controversial stories. NCPR wants those stories from me. If I ever find evidence of a plot to “pulverize” my neighbors in the Adirondacks, we will claw and fight to be the first to tell you about it.<\/p>\n
But that story has to be factual and fair. AM talk radio blather, ad hominem attacks, and conspiracy theories won’t cut it.<\/p>\n
Your thoughts and comments are welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Corrected: Mr. Dicker points out, accurately, that he said “pauperize” and not “pulverize.” I’ve corrected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}