The Buffalo News and the Niagara Gazette raced neck and neck last week to see who could first publish the news that former mayor Vincenzo V. Anello is about to be indicted. What a difference a few years makes!
Back on May 3, 2005, when the Niagara Falls Reporter first broke the story that Anello had taken secret payments, sometimes known as "bribes," from downtown developer Joe Anderson, both the Gazette and the News immediately assumed the position of the mayor's defenders.
In the News, the hapless Andrew Galarneau described what Anello did as a question of whether Anello "circumvented election finance law." Galarneau quoted Anello as saying the Reporter's article had been "totally unfounded, false and defamatory," and then promising, "It's going to take me a week to get all the information together, because I want to put it all out there. I'm going to explain every single move that I made."
Galarneau never called the Reporter offices asking to see copies of the documents on which our story was based, or even to get a comment such as "We stand by our story," which is pretty much standard operating procedure when you steal a controversial story out of another publication and then palm it off as your own.
Nine days after the first piece of rubbish appeared in the News, a second story came out, this one also bearing Galarneau's worthless byline.
After checking his records, Anello said, he realized he had taken the $40,000 from Anderson after all. Only it was a loan, see? And there was no interest charged on it or payback schedule attached.
But at least the News mentioned the fact that the story that has now become the former mayor's undoing first appeared in the Reporter. Over at the Niagara Gazette, they didn't mention us directly at all, instead dismissing the paper as an anonymous "small weekly tabloid."
The editorial department at the Gazette really liked Anello. Truth be told, they loved him, much as little children love Big Bird on "Sesame Street."
When the former mayor received a temporary restraining order against him, and the judge handed down an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal that required him to stay out of trouble for six months after pleading no contest to a harassment charge, the headline in the Gazette read, "Mayor's harassment charge set to disappear," as though he had been vindicated.
And when he left office after failing to garner enough legal signatures on his petitions to run for re-election, the Gazette's somber assessment read, "Anello leaves office with no regrets."
Incredibly, after dozens of subpoenas had been served and documents seized from just about every office at City Hall, the article pointed out that "the FBI has never publicly confirmed or denied that the investigation is ongoing," without mentioning that FBI regulations prohibit such disclosures in ongoing cases!
"Do you think the federal or state government would have me signing multimillion-dollar contracts if they thought that I was doing something shady?" Anello told the Gazette. "Where are the great investigative reporters now that this has been a dead issue? When it's all said and done, the FBI investigation will turn out to be a great lie."
Or something.
In all likelihood, I will be subpoenaed if and when the Anello case comes to trial, just as I was the only newspaper reporter subpoenaed in the Local 91 case here. Unlike that case, however, I didn't rely on any confidential informants in the Anello matter. Gail Anderson, Joe Anderson's ex-wife, gave me the documents our original story was based on for reasons of her own, and she's since done interviews and cooperated in the investigation.
So I'll take the stand, if called. Actually, I'll get a kick out of it. For more than three years, the News and the Gazette have done everything possible to dismiss the fact that their intrepid cadres of highly paid "journalists" were beaten by a small weekly tabloid on the biggest story to occur in Niagara Falls during the current century.
Speaking of the Buffalo News, you may have noticed that Bob McCarthy -- who seems to be assigned to the Tom Golisano beat -- didn't write a word about the Buffalo Sabres owner's $10 million gift to Niagara University a couple of weeks ago.
It was the largest financial endowment in the august 152-year history of the venerable institution, after all.
But I think I have it figured out. McCarthy is paid by Warren Buffett and who knows who else not to report on Golisano in any generally accepted use of the term. In reality, he makes his money by smearing Golisano at every opportunity.
Anyway, we'll see whether he writes about it next week when grand larceny charges against the sole source he used in attempting to harm the reputation of the Niagara Falls Reporter in a fraudulent Sept. 28 News story are filed by the Niagara Falls Police Department.
We're guessing he won't, since the charges will serve to completely discredit his earlier attempt at journalism.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | October 28 2008 |