Those plucky kids from Chester are back on the front page today.
Which no doubt will cause no small amount of ire to those folks who believe we are only featuring them because we’re in the tank for President Obama and this story is a way to paint them in a positive light.
This all started on Friday, when we featured the group of Stetser Elementary students who had been invited to the White House to take part in a special gardening program developed by First Lady Michelle Obama.
I wrote a blog item Friday saying it was refreshing to see a positive story about kids in Chester featured on the front page. Yes, I do think about the way the city – and its residents – is often portrayed in the pages of this newspaper and on this website.
That’s why we came right back on Sunday with a front page devoted to the exceptional effort of the Chester High boys basketball team, which captured back-to-back state titles in completing a perfect, 32-0 season.
If you want to know how we feel about them, check out today's editorial.
Today the Stetser gardeners are back on Page One, complete with a photo of them with the first lady.
I don’t doubt we’ll no doubt get an earful from people who claim it shows our bias in favor of Obama.
It’s all part of our liberal, left-wing agenda, you know.
You didn’t know? You must not be reading the comments on the website.
I welcome the conversation.
I don’t expect to convert anyone. Not in this partisan political atmosphere that so saturates the process.
And I’m not naieve enough to proclaim there is not a little bit of truth in some of their complaints.
I happen to think former President George W. Bush got a bad rap from the press. I always kind of liked him. I’m not so sure he was especially well-served by some of his aides, but that’s his legacy.
I’m not in the tank for anybody. I just wish we could enjoy a story for being a nice, positive look at some kids from Chester without trying to drown it out with a tired, old political argument.
By the way, we are going to be hosting a special episode of the PCN cable network’s “Journalists Roundtable” show on Wednesday. We are going to use it as this week’s edition of ‘Live From the Newsroom.’ We’ll be on at a special time of 1 p.m. It'll be live on the website, and then it will be on PCN a couple of times this week.
The topic: The state of the city. Chester, that is. We’ll be joined by Chester Mayor John Linder.
You’ve been warned.
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