Keith Hadley/Staff John Buchanan gestures as he swears to a reporter that he has not lied. A new publisher has been tasked with reining in Buchanan's 'obsessive' interest in a tax assessment story.
Posted on 12/18/2005 2:03:12 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Blairsville — To some in this mountain town, this is a troubling tale of what happens when a rogue journalist arrives from the big city, distorting facts and poisoning goodwill.
To others, it is the saga of an outsider exposing corruption and challenging Goliaths within a tightknit rural community.
To anyone with access to Google, it's the surreal story of a conspiracy theorist and fringe presidential candidate who once broke a briefly infamous story about Bush family financial links to a Nazi sympathizer — a story that nearly destroyed him.
This journalist tried to leave his mental and legal problems behind for rustic serenity, only to stir up more trouble with stories about the mundane process of property tax appraisals.
Whatever one thinks of John Buchanan's 13 weeks as editor of Blairsville's weekly Union Sentinel newspaper, no one disputes that he has caused bad blood in Union County, and he now has been called off a story that led to much of it.
"I swear to God I thought I was here to clean up a corrupt county," said Buchanan, his radio announcer voice cracking with emotion. "It backfired on me big time. I came here to hide out, not to get in a war."
Last week, his paper's owner brought in a publisher to oversee Buchanan's reporting. Buchanan's rocky tenure has left the Sentinel, with a claimed circulation of about 4,000, shut out of local government. Ad revenue for the struggling paper has dropped off.
Lamar Paris, the county's only commissioner, has been battling Buchanan for three months. He can't speak Buchanan's name without pausing to calm himself. He won't have any dealings with the Sentinel.
"It's junk journalism. It's not even journalism, it's just junk," Paris said.
Norman Cooper, editor of the weekly North Georgia News, the Sentinel's larger competitor, wrote an editorial comparing Buchanan to spoiled meat.
"Those that know him, absolutely despise him," Cooper said.
Yet Buchanan has supporters in this rustic county of about 20,000, set in the Appalachian mountains just south of the North Carolina border. Eddie Woodliff, 61, who provided tape recordings and documents for stories about alleged sloppy procedures and record-keeping at the county tax board, said Buchanan "is exposing things that have been swept under the rug for years."
"If you are in a total pitch black room and you all of a sudden turn on the light, it's too bright at first," Woodliff said. "That's the psychological effect of John's reporting on some of the people here."
Energetic, dramatic
Buchanan, tanned and energetic at 55, is a speed talker. His discussions — more like frantic monologues — ping-pong from tax assessments to international conspiracies. He can go from laughter to indignation to tears in seconds.
"I have a lifelong addiction to drama," Buchanan admits.
When Buchanan showed up at the Sentinel offices in August, he was hired on the spot. The underdog paper's four staffers were thrilled. Here was a self-described "in-your-face reporter" from rough Miami, who was fearless in dealing with the powerful. It was Scarface meets the Waltons.
Within days, this part timer, hired for $300 a week (no benefits) to write community news and sell ads, became editor. The paper had been without an editor for months, the last one quitting in tears after being run off by the competition, according to Sentinel owner Frank Bradley.
In August, Buchanan offended both Cooper and the mayor with a story about how the city changed its plans to cut down two trees for a sewer line. Not exactly Watergate, but the mayor felt the story misrepresented what the city was doing, and Cooper was irked that Buchanan quoted remarks he made that he thought were off the record. Neither man speaks to Buchanan now.
Buchanan filed a police report claiming Cooper, an editor who sometimes won't run the scores when local high school teams lose because he doesn't want to make the kids feel bad, had threatened to punch him. The charges were dropped.
But the stories that raised the most ruckus started with 4-year-old allegations by Woodliff and another man, Sonny Boyer, that the county Board of Tax Assessors and a contractor improperly handled assessment reductions of some properties. The men said the two newspapers were not interested in their story until Buchanan showed up.
In a county accustomed to front page stories about teacher awards and high school football, headlines like "County contractor broke law" raised eyebrows.
The issue explored in the Sentinel turned on whether Norman & Associates, a Chattanooga-based appraisal firm, made actual reassessments to taxable value of property or just advised the county on how to do so. Under state law, the board — not private companies — must make final decisions on reducing appraisals, which can lower a property owner's taxes.
Under pressure from the Sentinel, Paris, who appoints the board but does not oversee its activities, held a public meeting on Oct. 27 to look into the tax assessment issue.
At the end of the 2-hour-and-20-minute meeting, Paris read a prepared statement stating nothing was done wrong.
In an editorial, Buchanan declared the meeting a "star chamber kangaroo court," and called for Paris to be recalled or charged with crimes because Buchanan thought the commissioner was obstructing a full investigation.
"It became absolutely personal and I would be the first to admit that," Buchanan said.
Julius Hulsey, an attorney for the county contractor, Norman & Associates, said he intended to file a libel lawsuit against Buchanan, Bradley and the newspaper. He also plans to file a suit on behalf of Cooper against Buchanan for malicious prosecution. Hulsey said Buchanan called him recently and threatened to have him disbarred.
"I just have no idea what motivates this guy," Hulsey said. "It's just off the wall."
Many in town thought the stories were overblown.
"This is more like a personal vendetta," said Calvin Collins, 47, a lifelong county resident.
Paris also had trouble keeping it professional. At one point, he drove to the Sentinel office and yelled at the staff. Those who were there said Paris declared the Sentinel was "going down."
"That was a day when I was venting my frustration," Paris admits.
As the stories kept coming, some of Buchanan's "facts" became quicksilver. Buchanan called a Georgia Department of Revenue official and discussed what he said occurred in the appraisal process. She said his assertions, if true, would not follow Georgia law. Buchanan then reported that the official viewed the actions of Norman & Associates as "illegal." Weeks after that, he condemned Paris for rejecting the state's "preliminary findings."
But the state Department of Revenue made no findings, said Charles Willey, the department's spokesman. State officials do not believe any crime occurred, he said.
Last week, Bradley, who also owns four other weeklies in Georgia and North Carolina, appointed a publisher to rein in Buchanan's reporting and steer coverage away from the tax story. For now, Buchanan keeps the title of editor, but he no longer is editorial boss.
"You could say it's a check on John, which it is," Bradley said. "I just don't want us to be a one-issue newspaper. I think we beat this particular tax story to death."
Bradley, who doesn't think Norman & Associates did anything criminal but did keep sloppy records, said Buchanan became obsessed. Asked if he checked out Buchanan's background when he hired him, Bradley said, "I didn't really look into his past as much as I should."
Bradley said it didn't seem to him like anyone did anything criminal. He said he tried to tell Buchanan several times to move off the story, but Buchanan became "obsessed. ... John went overboard with this."
The chaotic several months have left the newspaper's staff, who all like Buchanan, wondering how much longer he will stay.
"It's been a wild ride," sighed Margie Schramke, a reporter.
A deflated Buchanan said he felt like his past was haunting him.
"I probably brought too much baggage," he said.
Buchanan's "baggage" is bizarre.
Talented but troubled
He has spent his adult life in advertising and journalism, writing mostly for small business weeklies and travel magazines. From 1994 to 2003, he lived in Miami Beach. David Kelsey, president of the South Beach Hotel & Restaurant Association and a close friend of Buchanan, said he was "a hell of a writer" but deeply troubled. "He just has very serious emotional problems that have short-circuited his career," Kelsey said.
Ted Carter, Buchanan's managing editor at the business weekly Miami Today, said Buchanan became so obsessed with stories that "I had to make sure he ate."
In the fall of 2003, Buchanan's life became even more disturbing. Using documents from the National Archives, Buchanan published a story in a small weekly in New Hampshire stating that Prescott Bush, grandfather of the current president, served on a bank board that had financial dealings with a Nazi sympathizer. In 1942, the federal government seized the bank's assets.
After Buchanan's story was published, The Associated Press investigated the allegations. Jonathan Salant, the AP reporter, said he "couldn't prove everything" Buchanan asserted, but wrote a story on what he found in the archives. The documents did show that Prescott Bush served on the bank board but was never charged with any crime.
In February 2004, Buchanan went to New Hampshire and ran for president in the Republican primary. With financial backing from a few friends and supporters, he stayed in an EconoLodge and gave talks to anyone who would listen. He used his candidacy to urge "that Congress investigate the 60-year media cover-up of the Bush family history," he wrote on one Web site. Calling himself "the 9/11 Truth Candidate," he argued that the federal government "wanted [the attacks] to happen" to clamp down on civil liberties and promote the defense industry.
Granite State voters were not persuaded. Buchanan received 836 votes to George W. Bush's 53,962.
Back in Florida, Buchanan unraveled. He was charged with stalking a man who dealt with him on the archives story. He admits to suffering "a mini-nervous breakdown." He called newspapers, demanding they cover his "historic scoop." Tom Fiedler, executive editor of The Miami Herald, said Buchanan threatened to kill him. Buchanan denies threatening to kill anyone, but said, "I lost it on Fiedler and other people."
"He crossed the line in terms of his behavior," his friend Kelsey said.
Buchanan acknowledges his fixation with the Bush story was a mistake.
"I thought the story was going to make me rich and famous," he said. "Instead, it destroyed my life."
Buchanan left Miami, leaving behind numerous legal problems, including the stalking charges, a marijuana charge and investigations into alleged death threats made against media executives. All charges were eventually dropped.
After publishing a book called "Fixing America," outlining his ideas, Buchanan traveled the country giving talks to small groups of conspiracy theorists. Last August, he took up an offer to stay with friends in Georgia.
Buchanan drove into Blairsville in a white Honda Civic hatchback, displaying a bumper sticker declaring, "The official 9/11 story is a BIG LIE." He arrived with little money and no job in a county where 74 percent of voters chose Bush for president in 2004.
"Even sane, it's hard to imagine John there," Kelsey said.
Now, after months of tumult, the Sentinel has carried no stories on the tax issue in the last two weeks. Buchanan's fans are disappointed.
"I am not going to let whatever he did in the past sway my view of what he's doing here," Woodliff said.
Buchanan's enemies are not mollified. Paris has issued tape recorders to every county office. Employees have been told to record all conversations with Sentinel staff.
"I'm too wacky for North Georgia," Buchanan said. Despite the hostility he has engendered, he plans to stay in Blairsville for the time being.
"I ended up here for a reason," he said. "My destiny is not fulfilled yet."
Oh, wait...is this story about PAT Buchanan...? ;)
You may have heard of this guy.
Thought you'd enjoy seeing what he's doing these days.
Best,
Bump!
Another one who should check himself in.
"Mein Fuher! I can walk!"
No kidding!
ROTFLMAO. Now you've done it. The FR Buchanan Brigadiers (all five of them) are grabbing their pitchforks, tar and feathers. ;-)
I know, but it was just SITTING there, I HAD to do it...
Thanks, CW for the (strange/funny :) post.
..It seems, He's not the only one (hint: ABCNNBC_BS / "Big Ears" Perot) obsessed w/ the Bush Family.
LOL! ...it really does, "sound like Pat..."
There's one thing I missed in this story, circulation. If you can avoid a lawsuit, this guy is bound to create interest wherever he goes.
Bump!
This is an example of why mountain folk call people who come up from Florida, "Floridiots".
That's one way to put it.
A lot of "Floridiots" migrated to Florida from somewhere else.
Let's see pressured speech, scattered thoughts, high energy inappropriate to age, believes in bizarre conspiracy theories. Yep, he's a manic-depressive. Whoever posted that he needs to be back on his lithium is exactly correct.
BTW, while I'm not qualified in any way to be a critic, this has to be (IMHO) one of the most poorly written, disorganized articles I've ever seen. This author's editor needs to take him to the woodshed.
The AJC where this guy comes from leads the pack on leftwing garbage. They have embedded reporters in Iraq with the GA Army National Guard who almost never post stories that make it into print, perfering to spend their time in the green zone bars and hotels, I guess. The stories that do make the front page are more doom and gloom.
I am delighted this guy has gotten out of Atlanta to actually find out what common sense people think of his style of slash and burn reporting. What we think about his crusade to educate us all, to lift us from ignorance.
I hope they run his sorry butt out of Union County in short order.
|
|
Just a couple questions: (1) Is that a snake on top of the file cabinet, and (2) why is Buchanan holding his package??? |
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
