It was with a great sense of disappointment that I sat down in the Wharfinger Building on Nov. 13 and watched Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming publicly unveil a draft policy covering every law enforcement agency in the county that will decide which police officer involved shooting videos will be publicly released and how. […]
Editorial
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Stop Passing Notes!
Dean Glaser hit the nail on the head. It was back in April and the Fortuna city councilman was responding to a Journal California Public Records Act request seeking all emails and text messages sent and received by him and his cohorts during a pair of council meetings. “I never had my phone used at […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Meet Robert Hager
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I met Robert Hager. It was about a year ago, a balmy Friday morning in September, and I showed up at the Budget Motel on Fourth Street in Eureka, which the city was condemning with little notice to residents. Hager was standing in the parking lot […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Choices We Make
Here at the Journal, we pride ourselves on being hyper local. With few exceptions, we throw our limited resources into covering what’s going on in and around Humboldt County, covering that which lies beyond the Redwood Curtain only as it impacts us. We figure you readers have almost limitless options of where to get national […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Best and Worst of Us
In the face of natural disaster, the very best of humanity has been on display in Houston, Texas. People formed human chains across floodwaters to reach a man in his submerged car and pull him to safety. Pictures went viral of police officers carrying kids through waist-deep water, of everyday people trudging through with beloved […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Where We Left Off
The faces of Humboldt State University are changing and that’s a good thing. For everyone. It’s almost impossible to overstate HSU’s impact on Humboldt County. First, there are the raw numbers — it employs some 1,500 people, paying them around $100 million in annual wages. Of its roughly 8,500 students, 15 percent are local, meaning […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
#ThisIsAbsolutelyUs
It was with a deepening sense of horror that we watched the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, unfold last weekend, giving generations-old images of hate and violence new 21st century life. The torches. The robes. The Confederate and Nazi flags. The eyes filled with hate and the tongues spitting bigotry. Billy clubs, helmets and shields. Premeditated […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
A Culture of Civility
Do you have an inalienable right to anonymously spew hate speech in our comments section or anyone else’s? That’s a question that’s been thrown around a lot lately, mostly by anonymous online commenters, in response to a pair of NAACP letters to local news outlets asking them to consider the impact of the comments sections […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Winning Your Attention
Have we ever looked more critically at the news? You can’t throw a crumpled up newspaper without hitting a think piece on journalism as an instrument of propaganda or the last defense of the republic. Or both. Everybody and their cousin has an opinion on the impact of fake news, bias and click bait — […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘A Fundamental and Necessary Right’
The basic premise of the California Public Records Act is simple, articulated in a single sentence in its preamble: “Access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.” I’d recommend that everyone in Eureka City Hall take the time to read the […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Lens of Experience
It’s been with great sadness and a lingering sense of hope that I’ve watched news of David Josiah Lawson’s killing and its aftermath reverberate through Humboldt County. No matter what happened at a Spear Avenue house party on April 15, the violent death of a 19-year-old Humboldt State University sophomore should be cause for honest […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Let’s Talk About Rex
Humboldt County First District Supervisor Rex Bohn just really doesn’t seem to get it. Now, I qualify that claim since we haven’t had a chance to have a good, old fashioned on-the-record interview with Bohn because, as a matter of personal policy, he doesn’t talk to the Journal. So Bohn has declined our requests to […]