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Boy, that was some election coverage. The Gazette's endorsements of George Bush and Rick Lazio, its failure to endorse Byron Brown, and the complete, though perhaps deliberate, misunderstanding of the local ballot proposition seem fitting for a newspaper owned by a company based in the only place in America--Alabama--that still considers interracial marriage illegal.
Talk about being out of touch with your readers. Renae Kimble and other leaders of the African-American community have characterized the Gazette's withholding of an endorsement from Brown--who has two degrees, considerable experience and stomped Sen. Al Coppola in the primary--to be racist. We agree. What other explanation could there be?
Of course, Brown outpolled his competitors by more than 2 to 1, proving at least that the lack of a Gazette endorsement means nothing whatsoever.
Their enthusiastic recommendation of Lazio for Senate is another case in point. It was seemingly based on the fact--whined about by no fewer than two Gazette columnists--that Hillary Clinton didn't deign to visit them in that rat trap they call an office.
Hillary won by no fewer than 5,000 votes in Niagara County, again showing how closely the out-of-towners now running the once-proud newspaper keep their fingers on the pulse of the community they purport to serve.
We understand the Gazette's editorial board was badly split in its presidential endorsement. They ended up recommending George Bush. While the voters in Alabama overwhelmingly went for the mentally impaired Texan, voters here in Niagara Falls did not.
Still, the local paper's powers-that-be wanted the idiot to win so badly that they said he did in a front page headline the next morning when he actually hadn't.
Nice job.
Finally, the Gazette on a number of occasions prior to the election printed articles referring to the so-called "mystery referendum," question No. 2 on last Tuesday's ballot. Even after the election, the Gazette's writers and editors seemed at a loss to understand the question.
For the record, a "no" vote served to strip the City Council of powers it previously had, and increased the mayor's power. The "no's" won, but following the election, the Gazette reported it as a blow to the mayor.