WLOSer Frank Fraboni reported Wednesday that the Asheville Citizen-Times has stopped delivering the newspaper to Hillcrest and Klondyke apartments, two Asheville public housing complexes. The deliveries stopped about three weeks ago after newspaper carriers said they were approached by drug dealers and feared for their safety, according to the report.
Fraboni talked to a woman living at Hillcrest, who said the stoppage was an outrage. She said the apartment complex is filled with older people who have been taking the newspaper for years, and depend upon it for information.
Fraboni then interviewed Gene Bell, the Asheville Housing Authority director, who said somebody at the newspaper told him the story about carriers being scared. Bell said there’s actually been an increase of police patrols at Hillcrest and Klondyke.
Then Fraboni went knocking on the front door of the Citizen-Times. They told him to go away.
I’m trying to restrain myself here. But I have questions:
-Can the newspaper, suffering major revenue shortfalls and preparing to lay off 10 percent of employees after just announcing the shut-down of its production facility and the loss of 60 jobs, really afford to just stop delivering to paying customers?
-How hypocritical is it for a company that touts workplace diversity and diversity of sources in news coverage to turn around and stop delivering the newspaper to a public housing complex, which houses many minorities?
-Why not talk to Fraboni and explain what’s going on? For a company that makes a living by asking people tough questions, it’s striking to see the company shrink from answering tough questions posed to it.
In a final note, Fraboni said the housing authority might come up with some sort of lock box system for newspaper deliveries, but there are no details about the proposal.
19 Comments
Okay, local media vets, allow me to try again to make my point. The Citizen-Times lets these readers to be dumped like that, that’s wrong. The newsroom won’t report on it, that’s pathetic. But doesn’t this beg a much bigger question? Month after month, year after year, decade after decade have gone by without any serious or sustained scrutiny of the crisis within public housing from the Asheville Citizen-Times. Generations of kids are brutalized, old people are neglected, drugs and intimidation are visible everywhere, poverty is becoming more deeply ingrained… and everyone who can read understands that the daily paper, our only realistic hope of reform gaining any momentum, will never rise to the occasion. So we should be scandalized that the Citizen-Times is unwilling to deliver its, uh, product to public housing residents. Please.
thanks FJK!
Deborah, thanks for reading. miss you!
thanks to everyone for their comments.
nope Melissa, we lost the Circulation, Production, IT and HR directors. more to come …
Ask, I hope the beds you saw in the woods are the same ones we see from the Clingman side(in the woods behind MHO’s building at the corner of Hilliard and Clingman). I retired here from dc to be near family, so maybe my tolerance is higher. All retirees are not behind gates on the tops of mountains. We had some interesting reactions to the vigil on South French Broad. Speeding slowed ( an APD officer chaperoned us). Many passersby promised to walk with us next year. On the other hand, one prostitute flat out asked us when we’d be finishing, didn’t try to hide that we were hurting her business…duh, that’s the point, lady. It’s bad enough outside the building, what with the suicide or whatever in Aston Park, johns soliciting seniors like me (I’m laughing too hard to get scared) etc. I get your point about inside.
love your video of Whit Rylee, and, especially, the freight train video.
Ash — Thank you so much for providing a true public service.
I always learn about things which are important, especially locally, and am always inspired to consider view-points contrary to my own —- just by reading Ashvegas — which is a compliment I cannot give to any other WNC media outlet.
After all — who would have thought that I would ever agree with FJK on anything political?
Yes FJK — I am praying for Obama and have high hopes that he is for real.
I am so happy to hear you are back and well.
Ash kept us all informed on what was happening with you the past several years and it was frightening.
Although I never had any doubt that you would be back — and a force in your own right.
Excellent posts by Quinton, Melissa and the post by AskAsheville certainly made me stop and think about "things".
Keep it up Ash.
Is there a Pulitzer for bloggers??
And I’m not just sucking up because of the releases I send you from time to time.
Happy holidays to all!
It’s got to get better.
It doesn’t matter if carriers work for the paper or if they are contractors, or what the price of gas is, or anything else. What is the newspaper for? What is their mission?
AskKat, simply saying that being stuck (trapped) in a building (with elevators as primary access), and delivering papers outside to a bunch of low income townhouses is different. Looking from examples, in Chicago you can get the paper, but if you lived in "The Hole" projects, you got nothing, even police scared to get trapped in there, etc. In NYC, paper deliverers do not go in a building (high rise) where they could get stuck (because it is much easier to kidnap, rape, murder, rob, or any other crime in this type of structure – one entrance and one exit to hundreds of people and apartments) As far as the high rise, years ago (an now some nights) many could not walk past that place without getting solicited, intimidated, etc. Just saying it is not a street I regularly choose to walk down and enjoy myself. If they do to the high rise what they are doing to Aston Park, set an officer there (and in the park… their prostitute beds in the woods behind the park in the back corner) instead of or in addition to Pritchard Park, this area would clean up a little more, but I am sure officers would hiss at that, so paper deliverers should too. There has to be a better strategy anyway with cleaning up the low income housing in Asheville and making those places a step toward getting better, not worse. I hate that people have to live around that, just because their income is "low". They suffer the most. Altamont building downtown is the similar in some ways… we do not know the types of things that go on in that building, but it is not good (had an elderly friend who lived there recently, and has since passed, rip), but it seem like many flowed with the prositution and low key drugs there, so it was less noticable. Just some reality, some I wish I did not know. Definitely for the people and the crime stopping Kat, you can never write off everyone in a building like that. Talking about the bad guys, lol.
Maybe the Citizen-Times should send one of its "ace" reporters or "award winning columnists" to the housing projects to cover this story….I’d love to see something by Susan Reinhardt, or that tubby loudmouth John Boyle. Where is new editor Phil Fernandez on all of this?
I don’t think this is necessarily about racism on the CT’s part, but having gone in and out of those developments a lot lately and having edited that aforementioned special section on public housing, I do find this pretty nuts. I haven’t heard of dealers who get up that early, especially after they’ve been slinging rock on the corners until 3 a.m.
These housing developments are essentially in the central city. If they had to, as they have done on the past, the CT’s circ director could get out and deliver the papers to avoid this kind of mess. (Um, do they still have a CD? Seriously, I’m not sure if they do right now…no joke.)
This went on for THREE WEEKS and they did not address it or remedy it before people were upset enough to call their competing media. That is just unbelievable. I walked into the gym the other night and it was the talk of the place.
If any other local paper had been in this situation (or what is happening at Sardis) they’d be bird-dogging it like crazy, like a champion of the afflicted.
And then they exacerbated it by refusing to comment or acknowledge it.
Where’s that big mouth Boyle when you need him?
Q, great to hear from you! I was just trying to remember that story you did from a few years back. Wasn’t it a Thanksgiving special about a turkey getting shot or something?
Yes, your point of view is important. Former employee, current freelancer, etc.
You’re right — carriers and their contracts can be difficult to deal with.
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
Didn’t see WLOS report, don’t have a television … but, y’all are forgetting or ignoring (depending on whether you are or are not a former newspaper employee) one important fact here: Newspaper carriers do not work for the newspaper. They are independent contractors. With gasoline prices etc., the newspaper has struggled to get and keep carriers. If they won’t deliver to public housing, the paper can terminate the contract, but it would be hard put to find replacements. That means everyone on that carrier’s route would go without a newspaper, not just the folks being cut off now.
I believe the newspaper is already delivering to one central point at some gated communities, so a box is not in my mind a demeaning slap at people living in housing projects, or a racist ploy. It sounds like a workable solution – the newspaper keeps a carrier and the residents keep their newspapers.
Besides, former colleagues, I don’t remember this outrage over the AC-T cutting off delivery over the years in the outlying counties. When I worked there, I couldn’t get the newspaper delivered to my home just 3.5 miles outside of Bryson City … never mind actual coverage of news in my community. I never considered that it might be the newspaper being meanies to poor whites not living in Asheville. I just thought they were being stupid for losing sight of all the potential readers/advertisers outside of Buncome …
All that said, I’ll be damned however if I’ll defend the newspaper leadership for not commenting to the television reporter. That’s not only chicken, it’s stupid – any journalist worth a spit knows you’d better spin the story or it will spin you.
Returning now to farming, Quintin
AskAsheville,
I don’t get your point. "That high rise" on South French Broad Ave also is filled with older people who have been taking the newspaper for years. Many were homeowners in that area before "urban renewal" forced them out because they had trouble taking care of their homes as they aged. I know because their Neighborhood Association joined with my Neighorhood Association in a candelight vigil from Clingman Ave to South French Broad Ave to fight crime.
Ash,
Thanks for publishing this.
The real disgrace is that you can take it as an article of faith that the Citizen-Times will never cover the issue of the city’s public housing in any substantial way. They did a big special insert years ago and they cover crimes now and then. But there are thousands of Asheville children living in conditions that the Citizen-Times apparently deems unacceptable even for their paper carriers, and no reformer that ever lived in Asheville thinks for a minute the paper is an ally. At best, they contribute a useful drive-by article once in a while. At worst, they have instilled a pervasive belief throughout the community that blowing the whistle and hoping for "media coverage" is hopeless and should not be attempted.
Back atch yuh, Deborah! You are right about the "nemisis" part, but we’re all getting too old for that kind of nonsense. So, nice to hear from you and thanks for the shout-out. Also pleased to notice it appears you’ve returned from The Dark Side. I get the feeling you are not too disappointed with our new president, which pleases me to no end. If it is indeed true. Too bad the AC-T has gotten itself into a bit of a pickle on this one, but we can all only hope someone there decides to do the right thing.
Why don’t they hire someone who lives there? Not big problem solvers I guess…..
This is just wrong on so many levels. Pathetic.
Great response from FJK — whom I believe is a former colleague and occasional nemisis.
Hi from Deborah Potter FJK.
Great to see you back in town and doing so well.
Ash is right on target in this post. Gannett and the AC-T were obsessed with diversity and equality when I worked there — so this decision makes no sense.
This is not the kind of "change" WNC or this country needs.
Frank — Amen.
Hahahaha… so very funny. Klondyke and Hillcrest are condos in comparison to real public housing. I could maybe understand deliverers not wanting to go into that high rise on South French Broad Ave when it was packed out and terrible a couple of years ago. They have been delivering for years and it has gotten better. Technology and upgrades force criminal to stay underground and play it cool for the most part, or be a novice and be made an example of. Maybe there is a prostitute shortage in there and that is why they singled those 2 out, lol. Who knows whats on these peoples mind. Someone wants attention and someone finally listened to their whining. Trying to make news, ha.
I am going to copy the Citizen-Times "Letter To The Editor" on this post and have absolutely no expectation it will ever be printed:
Kudos to Frank Fraboni for finding this story and running with it. Not an easy one to do “around here”.
I believe it’s reprehensible that the Citizen-Times is taking these steps to appease a few paranoid, perhaps even racist, newspaper carriers. The Black drug dealers are there and they do tend to approach White people, but that’s because White people are the ones who tend to pour into Asheville’s public housing projects to buy dope and take it back to the suburbs. The young men who work these corners are doing what they can to get by. I am not saying it’s right, just that it is what it is.
I know, because I spent countless hours knocking on doors in Hillcrest, Klondyke, Livingston and neighborhoods, during canvassing for Barack Obama’s “Campaign For Change”. I felt appreciated and welcome, never threatened or fearful. Trust me, these are real neighborhoods with real people living in them. I hope President-elect Obama’s “Change” comes quickly to disenfranchised communities. These are good folks who want things to get better, for there to be more jobs for young people, affordable and improved health care for families and senior citizens—these are just some of the simple things too many of us take for granted.
The woman Fraboni interviewed is absolutely right. There are so many older people living in these neighborhoods that have depended on and paid for the Asheville Citizen-Times for many years. How dare AC-T management suggest some kind of “lock-box” to deliver newspapers. Residents here already have central banks of mailboxes, like college dorms.
At the risk of sucking-up, Ash, you are correct. Asheville’s daily newspaper can’t afford to turn away business in this economy, nor during an historic shift toward "Change" in America. The AC-T ought to consider coming along for the ride.