Newsflash: News Covered In Democrat

What do you call it when the local newspaper starts to...um, cover the news?

The Watauga Democrat actually posted an article about the extent of the local foreclosure crisis. Why did they wait so long to use the intergoogles and do a little semi-independent sniffing around?

Foreclosures of property more than doubled in 2008 compared to 2007 in Watauga County.

According to the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office, 76 notice of foreclosure hearings were served in 2007. Last year, that number climbed to 381, as of mid-December.

The notice of foreclosure is the first step in the process. Not all notices result in foreclosure. Clerk of court Glenn Hodges explained there are some differences in the numbers of notices served by WCSO and the relation to properties within the county. Officers may serve a notice of foreclosure hearing on a resident of Watauga for a property outside the county. Hodges estimated 40 notices of foreclosure hearings for Watauga property in 2007 and 225 in 2008.
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We started wondering out loud about the lack of local coverage of the foreclosure crisis almost exactly one year ago to the day today. See our posts here and here.

It is hard not to conclude that the Democrat may have decided that this was a non-story a long time ago--perhaps thinking that only urban minorities were the ones being foreclosed upon? Or, perhaps the Democrat blew the story off because, well, people in foreclosure can't afford to buy newspapers--and most importantly, they can't afford to purchase any of the items advertised in the newspaper. So, why bother.