Think about it. Colossal media organizations that have news outlets in our mostly-prosperous piece of the world like Gannett, Scripps Howard, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television, FOX and WorldNow mostly missed the rampant corruption and abject mismanagement of the dreadful little man who almost bankrupted the little City of Villa Hills, Mike Martin. Declining revenues and shrinking budgets played a part. But, so did inexcusable apathy.
Our case study is Gannett's incredible shrinking newspaper, The Kentucky Enquirer. The timid reporters who covered Mike Martin for this dying rag cut Martin far more slack than the little liar ever deserved. We can only guess that these cowardly correspondents thought they were giving undeserved credence to Martin's perpetual lies out of some misplaced respect for "journalistic integrity". Despite the fact that the little man they were reporting on had not one scintilla of integrity. And all of the Gannett reporters who covered Martin knew he was spewing nothing but lies. We know this for a fact.
That is why The Martin Chronicles beloved publisher gathered the best reporters who were ready and willing and able to fill the inexcusable void left by these colossal-and shamefully inattentive-local "news" organizations that missed the biggest story of local government corruption and incompetence in the history of local government corruption and incompetence. Namely, Mike Martin.
With all due modesty, The Martin Chronicles takes some measure of comfort in the largely recognized fact that our endless reporting efforts on that-mostly-otherwise-ignored- Martin corruption and incompetence played at least a small role in the unprecedented, staggering, astonishing, crushing, devastating, humiliating, shocking, overwhelming, dumbfounding 82%-18% electoral rout on November 4, 2014. We firmly believe that the more than 300,000 visitors to The Martin Chronicles "Fountain of Truth" included a sizeable segment of Villa Hills voters who came to know that Mike Martin was toxic to their town.
So, that brings us to an article posted in a fledgling internet news entry know as the nkytribune.com. Truth be told-as it always is with The Martin Chronicles-nkytribune.com is very,very hard to find. We were lucky to see the article shared on Facebook. Subsequent internet searches for nkytribune.com only yielded the confounding response "This page can't be displayed". Not good. Not good at all. At least for nkytribune.com.
So, anyway, former dinosaur media reporter Mike Rutledge posted a far too lengthy article about Villa Hills' new mayor-thank-the-Great-Spirit-and-the-finally-attentive-voters-of-Villa- Hills-Irvin "Butch" Callery. The best part of the article? Probably the online photo of someone sitting in the Villa Hills' mayor's office other than the vilely corrupt and abjectly incompetent Mike Martin.
But, what was Mike Rutledge-of-the-mysterious-and-mostly-unread- nkytribune.com-possibly thinking? Read the online article. That is, if you can find it. It will leave the sane people of Villa Hills scratching their heads.
Why did Mike Rutledge provide the misdirecting Martin even one keystroke? All Martin tried to do was tell even more lies about his mismanagement of the taxpayers' money. All Martin tried to do was offer up an ineptly feeble explanation for his well-known vendetta against the local police department that the little liar falsely blamed for his 2007 forgery arrest that was later affirmed by four respected appellate judges. All Martin tried to do was explain his tyrannical abuse of city employees when the former diminutive dictator tried to muzzle them from telling the TRUTH about his corrupt and incompetent administration.
And, why did Mike Rutledge go to Mary Koenig for smarmy comments about new Mayor Irvin "Butch" Callery? What a terrible choice. Koenig was the vile head of the dishonest ticket that was trying to fool Villa Hills voters in to falsely believing that the corrupt and incompetent Mike Martin was actually "Moving the City Forward" as they headed to the polls on November 4. 2014.
Mary Koenig's emetic track record is out there for anyone who takes even a little effort to research. It took The Martin Chronicles less than thirty minutes. The evidence clearly demonstrates that Mary Koenig has accomplished little more for the taxpayers' of Villa Hills than cause them one major-and very costly-headache after another since she was first elected to council in the previous century(1989, to be exact).
The Martin Chronicles advice to other fledgling media outlets that are trying to survive in a media era of tremendous change? Do the very hard work that is required to report the corruption and incompetence of misplaced "leaders" like the moronic Mike Martin. It isn't really all that difficult if you do the work that should be done. Crooked morons like Mike Martin are really easy to cover. If you are willing to work at it.
If you can't run with the big dogs, please, please, please stay on the porch.
