| ► Sacramento News & Review – 04/20/10 - 1st Place Newspaper Assn Award for “Beyond Driven” |
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Sacramento News & Review – 04/20/10 - 1st Place Newspaper Assn Award for “Beyond Driven” In handing out its annual awards in April 2009, The California Newspaper Publishers Association presented the Sacramento News & Review with a “first place” award for the investigative reporting by senior reporter R.V. Scheide. R.V. Schiede’s story titled “Beyond Driven” exposed the “how California State legislators pimp their publicly-funded luxury rides with taxpayer cash.” (http://tinyurl.com/yfu5kqt).
Mr. Schiede’s article exposed the outrageous abuses involving the misuse of public funds to provide California’s so-called legislators with luxury cars of their choosing, which included vehicles such as:
In addition, Mr. Scheide exposed legislators that found it acceptable to hose (screw) Californians by ordering the following: (there’s more)
Mr. Schiede’s expose involved numerous comments from the Watchdawg and/or made reference to facts/figures dealing with said abuses, which only resulted from thousands-of-hours of review of public records dealing with this unwarranted largess.
Kudos to Mr. R.V. Scheide and the Sacramento News & Review for exhibiting the courage and fortitude to expose these so-called public officials who treat taxpayer funds as their personal piggy-bank. The most disturbing facet of this outrageous largess is the fact that most if not all of these so-called public officials would have us believe that they are acting in the best interests of their constituents. Yeah, and so was Jeffrey Dahmer in regards to his deinner guests, if ya know what I mean.
If in fact, they were acting in the best interests of their constituents, you’d like to think that they’d have the courtesy to provide each of their constituents with a 50% off-coupon for their next purchase of Preparation H.
Keep up the good work Mr. Scheide and the Sacramento News & Review. Is it any wonder that the so-called mainstream media (Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times, San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, et al. are experiencing a rapid decline in subscribers.
In the day as they say, newspapers such as the Akron Beacon Journal (winner of several Pulitzers) dedicated themselves to investigating and reporting on corruption involving public officials. Sadly, the Beacon Journal and its counterparts have reverted to becoming nothing more than “advertisement vehicles.” Put simply, the mainstream media’s duty to be the “ultimate watchdog” in alerting us (that’d be you and me) with evidence of public corruption has taken a back seat to profits.
Thank goodness for periodicals such as the Sacramento News & Review, LA Weekly, Cleveland Scene, et al. Unfortunately, these weekly periodicals are, sadly the main source in regards to investigative reports on public corruption. And they are able to do so on budgets that pale in comparison to what the LA Times, NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Atlanta Constitution, Detroit Free Press, Philadelphia Inquirer or the Cleveland Plain Dealer, et al. have at their disposal.
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