| The Rhea County Newspaper |
| "Rhea County's REAL Information Source" |
I was just e-mailed a “gripe session” styled letter from RheaCountyNewspaper.com
contributor Kimberly Denton.
As I read Kim’s letter, it sort of fell right in line with a story that I was writing about the exact
same incident in which she is referring. So in a way, her letter seems to tell the story as good
as I could tell it, probably even better. So I plan on uploading her account as well.
Why not? I like the idea of different perspectives about different things.
We have been tinkering with the idea of making certain complaint letters, certain gripe letters
and other generalized “can’t seem to get anything done letters” and instead of chucking
them into some sort of letter to the editor, we use the letter and perhaps try to build some
sort of story around it. I hope this concept makes sense.
I supposed that to expect too much from a newspaper such as the Rhea County Herald-
News that portrays itself to be the general circulation newspaper for Rhea County, in spite of
the Chattanooga Times-Free Press having a much, much larger TRUE circulation that prints
lots of news about an array of topics that people may need to know about, and not just what
a few people “think” people need to know.
Well, here is what happened at the Dayton City Council meeting this past Monday night.
Kim Denton was the key note speaker for a large group of people. There was about 20
people there in support of her presentation to the council. Kim was addressing the council
about building the new skate park that they had already set aside the money in the 2007
annual budget to build it with, a reported total budget of $50,000.
Well this isn’t the story. Kim has taken care of that. You can click here to link directly over to
her story if you like.
The story being written now is how the Herald-News (H-N) once again failed to have a
reporter at a local governing body meeting. The first time was when Roy Denton had a
teleconference with Herald-News editor, John Carpenter where Denton was going to speak
before the Rhea County Commission with some sort of evidence he had that appears to
indicate that County Mayor, Billy Ray Patton had somehow been involved in some sort of
conspiracy to get Theresa Snyder fired as Election Administrator so that his alleged female
friend up in Spring City could get the job, sources say.
Remember, no one around here makes a dime and we all do this for free and as a public
service to ALL OF US in order to try to correct the major dis-service the regular Herald-News
rips out of the county. But we do try.
Anyways, John Carpenter told Denton that he would “fill in Max Hackett about what was
going to happen at the meeting”, but for some reason, Hackett never showed up. Although
Hackett nor any other reporter from the Herald-News was present at the county commission
meeting that night, in the Wednesday edition following the meeting right there on page 2
was a story about the meeting.
Now just how in the world did H-N reporter Max Hackett manage to print a story and use
quotes on something he never heard to begin with to even quote?
I guess Hackett pulled it off the exact same way as he did Monday night. Max Hackett was
NOT at the Dayton City Council meeting. In fact, not a single reporter from the H-N was there,
just contributors to this newspaper. That was it.
Naturally, we fell behind in trying to update and republish this site and it seemed to have
worked out for the best. On Wednesday, we obtained a copy of the Herald-News and read
the three predicted front page stories that we predicted would be on their front page when
we broke the three original stories within hours after the incidents actually happened, not
days later acting like copycats…
But right there on the front page was an article with a catchy title called “Fire hall hot topic
with city council” written by Max Hackett, Herald-News Reporter.
Right then and there about four of us started banging our heads around with blood
pressures rising trying to figure out just how in the world Max Hackett wrote a story and
even quoted people saying things when he never was even there. How in the heck is that
possible?
I mean after all, one of our contributors stood and videoed the whole public discussion
about the skateboard park. But Max Hackett or anyone else from the H-N was even there. So
we even went one step further and confirmed this fact that the Herald-News did NOT send a
reporter to the council meeting.
Well, come to find out, we were told that Max Hackett’s wife had surgery and that he couldn’t
make it to the meeting.
Hey, that’s all fine and dandy and I hope his wife get well and recovers. But this does not
absolve the fact that John Carpenter or Ed Emens could not have done their job in ensuring
a reporter was present at the Dayton Council meeting.
Remember folks, the Herald-News wanted to be the “official” newspaper for both the city of
Dayton as well as Rhea County. The Herald-News even bids for advertising dollars and are
paid by YOU the taxpayer to deal honestly with the public. It is the Herald-News who MUST
abide by the “newspaper” stuff. It is they who gets paid lots of money in the form of ads, etc.
to print the news events they boast about having printed for the last 100 years, whatever…
So what do we do then?
An e-mail is fired off to Max Hackett. Phone calls were made and the saga of trying to get
someone to explain to us and Rhea County citizens just how does Max Hackett write a story
with quotes from something he knew absolutely nothing about.
Hey, I have an idea. How about me just sitting back and let people spout off things to me and
I print it acting as though I was front and center like a male version of Lois Lane.
I think Kim referred to Hackett as “Casper the Ghost”. I think I will address him as the
invisible man.
In any event, the truth of the whole story is that Max Hackett never attended the Dayton
Council meeting. Hackett, nor anyone at the Herald-News knew anything that happened at
the council meeting other than merely obtaining a copy of the agenda and rambling together
a whole bunch of sentences to justify a story so as to in turn justify advertising dollars.
The whole story to us at RheaCountyNewspaper.com is that the story written by Max
Hackett as printed in the Herald-News December 5, 2007 edition is a fraud. The only thing
that caught them this time is there is a NEW watchdog newspaper in town with plenty of
bandwidth and plenty of time to “bust” the cheating ways of reporting news around here.
Those days are over.
Now, you must be wondering just what happened in our plight to uncover details from the
Herald-News, so let me tell you all that before signing off here…
Well, as I just said above, Max Hackett wrote a front page story about the Dayton Council
meeting although he never was there. Well, the real kicker is the way they obviously are now
trying to cover up that fact of getting busted by us for their apparent printing of a fraudulent
story. Click here to see the original Max Hackett story as they printed it.
Now for the kicker, click here and see how the Herald-News printed the exact same story,
exact same date, exact same publication but a totally DIFFERENT REPORTER.
So now it sure seems very clear that the Herald-News got busted for cheating, scamming or
whatever such deception in ghost fake reporting is called. Click here and see the same story
with a different reporters name on it.
Amazingly, these people down there at the Herald-News do not even know how to cover up
a fake news report without getting caught, by once again publishing another fake news
report of the exact same fake news report that was a fake to begin with, using a fake name
that when busted, used another fake name.
Lastly, Rhea County truly needs a hard copy newspaper. A real newspaper that is truly
interested in public local news and events and printing reports fair, accurate and true. We
need a newspaper that can print the pictures, the obits, the jail blotter, the marriages, the
indictments, the public notices…all that sort of stuff. Truthfully, we at
RheaCountyNewspaper.com never intended to replace the Herald-News just force them to
do their jobs and stop the dirty dealing with an obvious political agenda.
Hey, maybe all the people down at the Herald-News have been doing things the same way
for so long that they may think that whatever they do is fine. Then again, the Jones Family
Media people may not think it’s so funny.
contributor Kimberly Denton.
As I read Kim’s letter, it sort of fell right in line with a story that I was writing about the exact
same incident in which she is referring. So in a way, her letter seems to tell the story as good
as I could tell it, probably even better. So I plan on uploading her account as well.
Why not? I like the idea of different perspectives about different things.
We have been tinkering with the idea of making certain complaint letters, certain gripe letters
and other generalized “can’t seem to get anything done letters” and instead of chucking
them into some sort of letter to the editor, we use the letter and perhaps try to build some
sort of story around it. I hope this concept makes sense.
I supposed that to expect too much from a newspaper such as the Rhea County Herald-
News that portrays itself to be the general circulation newspaper for Rhea County, in spite of
the Chattanooga Times-Free Press having a much, much larger TRUE circulation that prints
lots of news about an array of topics that people may need to know about, and not just what
a few people “think” people need to know.
Well, here is what happened at the Dayton City Council meeting this past Monday night.
Kim Denton was the key note speaker for a large group of people. There was about 20
people there in support of her presentation to the council. Kim was addressing the council
about building the new skate park that they had already set aside the money in the 2007
annual budget to build it with, a reported total budget of $50,000.
Well this isn’t the story. Kim has taken care of that. You can click here to link directly over to
her story if you like.
The story being written now is how the Herald-News (H-N) once again failed to have a
reporter at a local governing body meeting. The first time was when Roy Denton had a
teleconference with Herald-News editor, John Carpenter where Denton was going to speak
before the Rhea County Commission with some sort of evidence he had that appears to
indicate that County Mayor, Billy Ray Patton had somehow been involved in some sort of
conspiracy to get Theresa Snyder fired as Election Administrator so that his alleged female
friend up in Spring City could get the job, sources say.
Remember, no one around here makes a dime and we all do this for free and as a public
service to ALL OF US in order to try to correct the major dis-service the regular Herald-News
rips out of the county. But we do try.
Anyways, John Carpenter told Denton that he would “fill in Max Hackett about what was
going to happen at the meeting”, but for some reason, Hackett never showed up. Although
Hackett nor any other reporter from the Herald-News was present at the county commission
meeting that night, in the Wednesday edition following the meeting right there on page 2
was a story about the meeting.
Now just how in the world did H-N reporter Max Hackett manage to print a story and use
quotes on something he never heard to begin with to even quote?
I guess Hackett pulled it off the exact same way as he did Monday night. Max Hackett was
NOT at the Dayton City Council meeting. In fact, not a single reporter from the H-N was there,
just contributors to this newspaper. That was it.
Naturally, we fell behind in trying to update and republish this site and it seemed to have
worked out for the best. On Wednesday, we obtained a copy of the Herald-News and read
the three predicted front page stories that we predicted would be on their front page when
we broke the three original stories within hours after the incidents actually happened, not
days later acting like copycats…
But right there on the front page was an article with a catchy title called “Fire hall hot topic
with city council” written by Max Hackett, Herald-News Reporter.
Right then and there about four of us started banging our heads around with blood
pressures rising trying to figure out just how in the world Max Hackett wrote a story and
even quoted people saying things when he never was even there. How in the heck is that
possible?
I mean after all, one of our contributors stood and videoed the whole public discussion
about the skateboard park. But Max Hackett or anyone else from the H-N was even there. So
we even went one step further and confirmed this fact that the Herald-News did NOT send a
reporter to the council meeting.
Well, come to find out, we were told that Max Hackett’s wife had surgery and that he couldn’t
make it to the meeting.
Hey, that’s all fine and dandy and I hope his wife get well and recovers. But this does not
absolve the fact that John Carpenter or Ed Emens could not have done their job in ensuring
a reporter was present at the Dayton Council meeting.
Remember folks, the Herald-News wanted to be the “official” newspaper for both the city of
Dayton as well as Rhea County. The Herald-News even bids for advertising dollars and are
paid by YOU the taxpayer to deal honestly with the public. It is the Herald-News who MUST
abide by the “newspaper” stuff. It is they who gets paid lots of money in the form of ads, etc.
to print the news events they boast about having printed for the last 100 years, whatever…
So what do we do then?
An e-mail is fired off to Max Hackett. Phone calls were made and the saga of trying to get
someone to explain to us and Rhea County citizens just how does Max Hackett write a story
with quotes from something he knew absolutely nothing about.
Hey, I have an idea. How about me just sitting back and let people spout off things to me and
I print it acting as though I was front and center like a male version of Lois Lane.
I think Kim referred to Hackett as “Casper the Ghost”. I think I will address him as the
invisible man.
In any event, the truth of the whole story is that Max Hackett never attended the Dayton
Council meeting. Hackett, nor anyone at the Herald-News knew anything that happened at
the council meeting other than merely obtaining a copy of the agenda and rambling together
a whole bunch of sentences to justify a story so as to in turn justify advertising dollars.
The whole story to us at RheaCountyNewspaper.com is that the story written by Max
Hackett as printed in the Herald-News December 5, 2007 edition is a fraud. The only thing
that caught them this time is there is a NEW watchdog newspaper in town with plenty of
bandwidth and plenty of time to “bust” the cheating ways of reporting news around here.
Those days are over.
Now, you must be wondering just what happened in our plight to uncover details from the
Herald-News, so let me tell you all that before signing off here…
Well, as I just said above, Max Hackett wrote a front page story about the Dayton Council
meeting although he never was there. Well, the real kicker is the way they obviously are now
trying to cover up that fact of getting busted by us for their apparent printing of a fraudulent
story. Click here to see the original Max Hackett story as they printed it.
Now for the kicker, click here and see how the Herald-News printed the exact same story,
exact same date, exact same publication but a totally DIFFERENT REPORTER.
So now it sure seems very clear that the Herald-News got busted for cheating, scamming or
whatever such deception in ghost fake reporting is called. Click here and see the same story
with a different reporters name on it.
Amazingly, these people down there at the Herald-News do not even know how to cover up
a fake news report without getting caught, by once again publishing another fake news
report of the exact same fake news report that was a fake to begin with, using a fake name
that when busted, used another fake name.
Lastly, Rhea County truly needs a hard copy newspaper. A real newspaper that is truly
interested in public local news and events and printing reports fair, accurate and true. We
need a newspaper that can print the pictures, the obits, the jail blotter, the marriages, the
indictments, the public notices…all that sort of stuff. Truthfully, we at
RheaCountyNewspaper.com never intended to replace the Herald-News just force them to
do their jobs and stop the dirty dealing with an obvious political agenda.
Hey, maybe all the people down at the Herald-News have been doing things the same way
for so long that they may think that whatever they do is fine. Then again, the Jones Family
Media people may not think it’s so funny.
| Rhea County's oldest newspaper caught cheating on stories ~~~EXCLUSIVE~~~ Roy L. Denton, contributor |
