What does it ultimately mean when the executive director of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission orders the agency’s monthly publication, Wildlife in North Carolina, pulled from an exhibit at the N.C. State Fair exhibit and from other venues across the state?
That’s what happened when Gordon Myers ordered October 2010 issues of the magazine removed from the fair in Raleigh, from shelves at Commission education centers across the state, and from agency headquarters in Raleigh.
What was the problem? A letter to the editor.
Wallace Chambers, president of the Piedmont Wildlife Club in Bahama, objected to the magazine publishing a feature article entitled “Q&A with Gov. Bev Perdue” in its August 2010 issue.
“This section doesn’t pass the political sniff test,” Chambers’ letter stated. “It stinks like 3-day-old road kill, as the Mike Easley article (“Executive Environmentalism” — Oct. 2004) stunk just before a previous election, and we now know how shady Mike Easley is.”
The letter also asked why, instead of printing complimentary stories about governors just before elections, the commission’s staff biologists shouldn’t be allowed to explain “how the political appointees to the (NCWRC) are leading us down the road to mismanagement in proposing foolish changes to wildlife regulations.”
Greg Jenkins, editor of Wildlife in North Carolina, penned a reply to Chambers’ letter, noting, “I understand your displeasure with the feature, but I’d urge you not to throw out the baby with the bath water. I hope that (WINC) contains dozens of informative, entertaining articles for every one that is offensive.”
The timing of “puff” pieces before elections should have raised eyebrows, but in an interview with a Raleigh newspaper, Myers ignored Wallace’s complaint and said he had the magazine pulled because “this was a letter that talked about policymaking decisions of our board, and our editor failed to even look at that, as far as I was concerned.”
To Perdue’s credit, when she heard about Myers’ decision, she had the magazines put back in place.
However, yanking a tax-supported magazine from public view isn’t as disturbing as what the decision showed. It’s almost certain that Myers didn’t solely decide to yank the magazine; support for that idea — or orders — likely came from Steve Windham, the Commission’s chairman. In fact, Myers admitted to the newspaper that he’d discussed it with Windham. A campaign contributor to Easley and Perdue, Windham also admitted to the newspaper that he had “suggested” the Perdue story be written in the first place.
What’s more disturbing is that Myers and Windham couldn’t see (or didn’t care about) the consequences of their attempted censorship — that readers would be astounded and/or offended — which shows political considerations continue to rule at Commission headquarters in Raleigh.
Perdue, now under federal investigation for campaign-contribution irregularities, certainly needs all the help she can get. However, if Myers had stood up for Jenkins, a professional division employee, he might have suffered the same fate as his predecessor, Dick Hamilton, who was sacked for supporting another employee against commissioners.
We hope for Jenkins’ sake he doesn’t receive any punishment for doing his job well and answering a letter with a reasonable response.
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