Taking a page out of the Jason Rose playbook (“He supported it before he opposed it”), the editor of the “straight and unbiased” Scottsdale Independent, Terrance Thornton, posted a Throwback Thursday Facebook reference to a ScottsdaleTrails article I wrote years ago regarding his ascension to his current position:
Terrance Thornton
Throwback Thursday: cool to see an idea five years ago has become a reality.
New Media Voice In Scottsdale – Scottsdale Trails
Terrance Thornton, former news editor for five weeklies in Independent Newsmedia Inc.’s East Valley office (Apache Junction, Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler and Queen Creek Independent newspapers), was recently promoted to North Valley news editor for PV Independent and Scottsdale Independent newspapers. Te…
www.scottsdaletrails.com
This is particularly funny because as much as my old article expressed hope for the future of journalism in Scottsdale, Terrance has effectively dashed those hopes within days of that auspicious anniversary. In less than a week, he told me (the closest thing to an in-depth political reporter Scottsdale has had in a decade) AND mayoral candidate Bob Littlefield (the elder statesman of Scottsdale politics, and a walking repository of contemporary city government history), that our voices will no longer be heard in his publication.
Why? Because we dared to question Terrance’s political neutrality!
And Terrance’s post is even more ironic, because I can’t see it. Mr. Neutrality has blocked me from seeing his Facebook posts, and apparently unfriended me, as well. This not less than 24 hours after defending himself publicly for “liking” a dishonest post from incumbent mayoral candidate Jim Lane, who plagiarized Bob Littlefield’s campaign slogan.
Terrance made up some lame excuse about trying to “activate the algorithm” on Facebook that did some mumbo jumbo. But we all know that Terrance now supports Lane (and more importantly Lane PR manager Jason Rose, who is an important customer for the “Valley Newspapers” commercial printing affiliate of the Scottsdale Independent), so Terrance may as well drop the pretense and the thesaurus.
In yet another irony, the Republic’s Parker Leavitt appears to be turning the tide of real journalism back the other direction. This is evidenced by his recent article about over-development in North Scottsdale, which is an issue that Thornton and the Independent have all but ignored.