Yet More Proof of the Obvious

A commenter below asked for my opinion about this Commercial Appeal story on the police promotions / testing process. What can I add? This is a corrupt and covetous city, rife with folks who are only too happy to blame others, or profit from the blaming. Strong leaders are called for, like 'em or not. Yes, they make do things you don't like, but they get things done. What we have instead is an enormous "go along to get along" community of mutual self-profit and protection. Surrounding that is a milque-toast rabble too afraid to do anything.

The story doesn't say anything that anyone paying attention doesn't already know. What it also doesn't say is who is doing anything to change this culture. Not in namby-pamby Oprah-lite stories of struggling and overcoming, but in digging in, naming names, rooting out and shaming those who promote or acquiese to the culture of corruption.

I got nothing more. The solution is a frightening one, involving uprooting a lot of lives and careers, and making dramatic, shattering change. No one likes that, few communities ask for it. It's too much. It's dangerous. It might affect me. There's the months and years of insecurity until we see results. There's the chance that the revolution might be seized by the very elements we seek to remove, and subverted.

Too dangerous, too risky. Unlike what we have now.

And while we're looking at this story, I want to lambaste, to bathe in flames of excoriation, to reduce to embarrased pixies, the idiots responsible for the online version of this story.

Go to the bottom of the story. Look at this section: "A Look at the Headlines." That's a list of all the stories the Commercial Appeal (presumably) wrote on this subject. I say "presumably" because...

THERE ARE NO HYPERLINKS TO THE ARCHIVED STORIES ON THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL WEBSITE. NOT ONE. NONE

It passes beyond excusable, beyond thoughtless, beyond flabbergasting even. For a website that archives their stories NOT TO LINK TO THOSE STORIES IN A STORY ABOUT THOSE STORIES is simply an abandonment of the principle of journalism.

If there were a competition for Commercial Appeal incompetence, this would be the prize winner in a long, long list of potential winners.

I'm not even going to try to locate these stories through their Search tool. I'm willing to bet almost all won't be findable. They found 'em. They showed 'em to you. But you can't read 'em! Too bad for you!

Abysmal.