Today is a historic day for the Spartanburg media. So historic, in fact, that you might want to go out and buy a copy of today’s newspaper to remember it by. It’s not because there’s some epoch-defining news. It’s because today, for the first time in months, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal‘s local coverage is hitting on all cylinders. Today’s edition is the minimum standard they need to be held to from now on.
What’s so great about it? There were three locally relevant stories that merited reading in a single issue. Sometimes, we’re lucky if there’s one such story a week, but today — by fluke perhaps — the paper is actually worth the newsstand price.
The first story of note is a nod to the closing of a downtown eatery, Justin’s Steakhouse. Writer Trevor Anderson could have played into the melodrama here — the closing of a downtown tradition or some such hyperbole — but instead opts to treat the situation quite literally. This is a regional fine-dining chain that failed in several locations before failing here.
Justin’s Steakhouse, located in the historic Citizens and Southern National Bank building in downtown Spartanburg, closed Monday due to a lack of business.
The fine-dining restaurant had seen a sharp decline in sales during the past six months and its bottom line had dipped below the point of breaking even, owner Bernie Kavo said.
“The first two years here were great,” said Kavo, who was emotionally moved as he delivered the news to his employees and customers at the restaurant Monday. “But the economy has been very tough on us. We fought long and hard here, but we just weren’t able to financially support the high standards that we had for our business.”
It has a refreshing matter-of-fact tone to it that you don’t generally find in these sorts of stories, as newspapers generally tend to be heavily sympathetic to their local business community. (Not surprising, given that this is also their pool of advertisers.) But instead of leaving it here, Anderson also uses the story as a springboard to show that there’s a near explosion of non-fine dining establishments in downtown.
Sure, this may just be a little “don’t give up hope” message, but it echoes a larger idea that Justin’s didn’t fail because downtown is hopeless, but rather because they were offering a service — high-end food — that isn’t terribly popular in a recession climate.
Next is Jason Spencer’s coverage of the 4th Congressional District candidate forum, which saw a heated exchange between incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis and 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy. Without wasting much ink, Spencer gets right into it …
“Do you teach that in Sunday School — to follow the rules, except when others aren’t following rules?†Inglis later confirmed he asked Gowdy. Inglis said he would ask that of any candidate, and was referring to his opponents’ refusal to disapprove of the actions of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson for yelling “You lie!†to President Barack Obama during a joint address of Congress last month.
Inglis sided with congressional Democrats in disapproving of Wilson’s outburst.
Gowdy said he responded with, “We don’t teach that — or hypocrisy, which is what you demonstrated when you voted to sanction Joe Wilson†and not California Rep. Bob Filner — who Gowdy said had been convicted of trespassing, and assault and battery — and other congressmen under federal investigation. He said to Inglis that “your …sanctimoniousness might be why you have four opponents up here.â€
I don’t want to ruin the rest of the piece, so I’ll just leave it at that. It definitely merits a read, though.
The third story worthy of note is Gary Glancy’s City Council coverage from yesterday’s meeting. The story itself is rather straightforward, but where Glancy succeeds is in getting a little color in the narrative. This is generally easy to do when the topics are controversial — as is the case with this week’s hearing on east-side annexation — but it still takes a good ear to pick out the most compelling quotes.
For instance …
Homeowner Steve Carruth said, “It’s pretty simple: If you buy a piece of property and you’re not informed of this, that shouldn’t (legally stand). If you’re informed that your property has a rider on it, that if this happens, you have to abide by it, that’s one thing.
“But if you buy a piece of property and are never told that a person two deeds ago — 25, 30 years ago — signed that (agreement), then there’s something wrong. That’s not due process.”
While Glancy doesn’t really present the other viewpoint — that the annexations aren’t unfair and that homeowners have had plenty of time and advance warning that they were coming — that doesn’t mean there’s bias. It might not have come up in the meeting, and injecting such content would be veering into editorializing. But as a document of the tone of a meeting, this seems to be very successful.
Steve Shanafelt
Whoa- I follow Jason Spencer on Twitter so I knew that there was an exchange between Inglis and Gowdy but didn’t know it was that juicy. Damn- now I have to go and deal with the GoUpstate website to read it. For some reason, it seems to load so slowly about half the time so I tend to avoid it.