JOHNSON CO., Ill.—We’ve received this information from SAFE, the anti-fracking group
SAFE (Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment) is promoting the fracking ban ballot initiative in Johnson County. In the midst of SAFE’s efforts to educate Johnson County residents about the March 18 ballot initiative the owners of the only two media outlets in Johnson County (The Goreville Gazette & The Vienna Times) have refused to run advertisements promoting the initiative.
According to Annette McMichael, SAFE Communications Director, she received a call from Lonnie Hinton, co-owner of both papers, telling her that he was refusing all advertising from SAFE. McMichael & Hinton had worked together to coordinate inserts in the next two weeks’ newspapers and Hinton had already accepted 6000 printed pieces. She asked if private citizens could buy advertising promoting the ballot initiative. ‘I’d have to see it first,’ was his reply. When pressed about what content he’d accept, Mr. Hinton told Mrs. McMichael ‘talk to my attorney’ and hung up the phone.
Over 1000 Johnson County citizens placed the following initiative on the March 18 ballot:
“Shall the people’s right to local self-government be asserted by Johnson County to ban corporate fracking as a violation of their rights to health, safety, and a clean environment?”
This is a non-binding ballot initiative. The purpose is to tell the county commissioners that Johnson County residents don’t want fracking and encourage them to initiate a ban via a Community Bill of Rights.
‘SAFE can’t even buy press in Johnson County.’ stated Stephen Nickels, Johnson County resident. ‘Commissioner Ernie Henshaw formed a coalition to oppose our group fighting the environmental disaster that is fracking. On Thursday the coalition met in private. On Friday the newspapers canceled all advertising supporting the ballot initiative. This is not a coincidence.
Both newspapers had been very supportive of SAFE’s efforts to fight fracking until now. Although newspapers have a right to refuse advertising and this is not illegal it is a sad and disturbing situation.
Now, we want to put in our two cents on this.
No pic of Scary Jerry Reppert. Apparently his poop smells way too good for him to be putting his face out there.
Both those listed newspapers—the Goreville Gazette and the Vienna Times—are owned by not only Lonnie Hinton, but also by Jerry Reppert. Reppert, many of our readers are familiar with….he’s also the co-owner of another handful of small newspapers; in our area, he has controlling ownership (51 percent) the paper I helped Patrick Seil start up in 1995, The Navigator. Reppert, back in the late 90s, saw himself as some kind of media mogul and was into buying up a lot of failing little newspapers: not the whole thing, just controlling interest, so that he could A-help keep it afloat and B-take a tax write-off on some so that it would balance out the limited success of others.
Randy Kern, reviled Pulaski Co Sheriff, aka “Boob Bandit”
Reppert is one of those sickening “don’t rock the boat” paper owners. If something’s a popular idea with the politicians, he’s going to follow them panting like a puppy, every time. Take downstate prisons, as an example. Reppert was all about owning the newspapers in the areas where the Illinois governor at the time (George Ryan) wanted to site prisons, hence his presence in Johnson County (Vienna) and Alexander County (Tamms; Reppert owns the paper in Cairo, as well as the one in Pulaski County, which did SUCH a bangup job telling people about their idiot sheriff Randy Kern, all his civil sexual harassment suits, and his arsonist kid). Reppert was right on it when it appeared the Navigator was on its last leg in 2000 a year after Ang and I left…because Ryan was siting a prison in Grayville, and Reppert was on a “prison siting” group, Southernmost Illinois Prison Committee. That group works hand in hand with the private businesses that wish to build a prison and contract with the state….and is part and parcel to the industry that lends to the “prison planet” mentality of more and more laws creates more and more criminals which fills more and more prisons to capacity, thus necessitating more being built.
It doesn’t surprise us, therefore, that the mentality behind this all is “only our legislators know what’s good for us,” and of course the legislators are by and large in bed with those who want to start the NEW fracking procedures involving incredible volumes of water and chemicals that will NEVER be disclosed because they’re “proprietary formulas” and thus, trade secrets. Ergo, it doesn’t surprise us a bit that Reppert’s buddy Hinton told the SAFE folks to piss off. Granted, it’s his right as a business owner; all newspapers have the right to refuse service of any sort to anyone they so choose, just like any OTHER privately-owned business. As a matter of fact, they can also publish any information they so choose (taking a side in the fracking debate, as an example), because that is their right under the First Amendment (Freedom of the Press; remember, Freedom of the Press is for two sorts of people: those who operate a newspaper, and those who want–or don’t want–to read it). However, refusal to cover all sides of a story is what leads to some upstart creating his own paper and telling the side that no one else will tell….just like we did with Disclosure in 2003. We wrote that people didn’t want a prison in Grayville. We wrote that people were afraid of the trash it would bring in, just like Big Muddy in Ina has done to Mt. Vernon and nearly every burg in Jefferson County. We wrote it…and when the prison project was dumped, there were an awful lot of happy people, but they weren’t vociferous about it…the handful of people who were pissed were yelling loudest and were threatening those of us who were in opposition of it, sometimes literally.
But that’s what happens…someone with opposing views gives people a voice, and you learn the truth. And you can learn the truth about fracking: it is NOT safe. It is NOT the “same fracking that’s been going on for 50 years.” It is NOT going to be the savior of southern Illinois, because just like those idiots poring over all the county title and deed documents, the fracking companies don’t hire locals en masse…they bring in their own teams, who already have experience. I could go on and on, but you’d be best served looking at SAFE’s website at the link. Scary Jerry, as called him for years, isn’t going to tell the truth, and if he turns down money in the form of ad revenue, you KNOW he’s getting it from somewhere else….and that ‘somewhere else’ is from the fracking industry, just like it was with the prison industry. Learn the facts. Say no to fracking.