Talk about your timing: In case you missed it, the Asheville Disclaimer page in this week’s Mountain Xpress turned its satirical eye on the daily newspaper with a bit titled “Citizen-Times considering addition of ‘news’ section.”
Nyuck, nyuck. But who’s laughing now? In yesterday’s edition, the Citizen-Times scored a news coup with its detailed report on an audit of the (partially missing) contents of former Buncombe County Sheriff Bobby Medford‘s evidence room, garnering attention from media outlets across the state.
So, I figured that Disclaimer co-editor Tom Scheve would have a little egg on his face about the matter, since his feature ribbed the C-T for lack of news during the very week they made some very serious news. I called him for his reaction.
“The Disclaimer takes it as a personal slight,” Scheve says of the newspaper’s sheriff scoop. “Not only did they do a sudden about-face and include news in their newspaper just to stick it to the Disclaimer, they had the audacity to put it on their front page and not in the back of Sports, as we had predicted they would.”
After fulminating (at times incoherently) against the C-T for what felt like hours, Scheve went on to share a little news of his own: “As I understand it from my inside source at the Citizen-Times, word around the water cooler is that another news story is scheduled for late August, possibly early September. That unsubstantiated rumor has apparently been a real morale-booster around the newsroom: They’ve been marching around the cubicles giving chest-thumps to each other and making deep barking noises.”
[Editor’s note: The above report, like the Asheville Disclaimer, is a parody/entertainment.]
— Jon Elliston, news editor
This might be the first time I’ve ever laughed about anything associated with the Disclaimer.