The City of Greensboro attempted to make a three-pronged argument for why the new proeprty owners should be bound to the agreement made with the developer. All three failed. The court told Greensboro that the law allows people being annexed to object at any time prior to the official adoption of an annexation ordinance and, if Greensboro doesn't like it, to take it up with the state legislature.
Update: In the comments, Joe Killian points out that the Carolina Journal story was subsequent to other reporting of the same set of facts, and thus not an exclusive. Although the article itself is no longer identified as an exclusive, remnants of that original claim remain in the article's url: http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=7839
I think the Carolina Journal Online report counts as an exclusive only if you expand the definition to include news items reported more than a week after other news outlets.
ReplyDeleteIt was reported the day of and the N&R had the story (by Jennifer Fernandez) on May 18 (May 17 online), well ahead of the June 1 date on the CJ item.
Link here:
http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/05/17/article/appeals_court_affirms_nullification_of_mcleansville_annexation
Wow. Thanks, Joe. Obviously I had not seen any previous reporting and had started to wonder throughout the day why I wasn't seeing it anywhere else. The Lowrey article no longer claims it is an exclusive, although that original claim remains documented in the URL. Live and learn.
ReplyDeleteIt's all right -- I think some people just don't see other coverage whenever it happens and assume something is an exclusive.
ReplyDeleteIt of course does not help that a lot of outlets -- especially TV -- brand things "exlusive" even if EVERYONE else has it, or has had it first, sometimes a week or several weeks before.
I sometimes wonder how they get away with that or even justify it to themselves. I mean, it's technically true that no one else has had that exact story by that exact writer on the subject, so in that sense every piece is an "exclusive." But I can't tell you how many times over the last couple of years I've seen something I've covered days earlier referred to as an "exclusive report" on the afternoon TV report.