A MOUSE ROARS

Article from the website: Black Velvet Bruce Li

A Mouse Roars
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By Greg L | 10 May 2007 | PWC Politics, Blogs | 6 Comments

Yesterday’s editorial in the Manassas Journal-Messenger slammed Haymarket’s police department for a series of sexual harassment incidents and abuses of authority that are stunning. What it also did, or perhaps tried to avoid by not mentioning them, was to vindicate the efforts of those who run the website townofhaymarket.info and demonstrate that the political landscape is dramatically changing in favor of those with the determination to participate in the political process and wield the internet as their means of doing so. This story, as with most of the other stories in Haymarket, came to light because of one anonymous person and the website he runs.

There are lots of small towns across Virginia where newspaper reporters rarely tread. Local politics in these tend to be the domain of a small group of insiders, and among these it’s often not too difficult to keep things quiet. What seems to be newsworthy in these venues most of the time are the usual nuts and bolts of managing a locality, the boring and mundane. The excitement, to the extent there is, might revolve around the flower show by the ladies auxiliary, or the annual historical society bake sale. Open the pages of the Bull Run Observer, and you’ll see page after page of this.

It’s actually very comforting. For someone like me, a town where the headline of the day announces who was named to the varsity baseball team at the local high school is a pretty attractive place. Unfortunately the reality of this Norman Rockewell picture of small town Virginia is sometimes rather different. These are the places where corruption and mismanagement have a great potential to thrive, and given that local reporters aren’t going to be keeping a close eye on things, when a town’s government goes bad it tends to stay that way for a lot longer than it might in larger jurisdictions.

Stepping into this gap is the anonymous sole proprietor of townofhaymarket.info, a website that has relentlessly dug up every detail it possibly could on Haymarket corruption and abuse, and shouted to all that would listen that there were enormous problems. It’s gotten the attention of town councilmembers, and threatened with legal action. It’s put information, most of which is thoroughly documented, in the hands of local citizens and caused a small ruckus. Perhaps most effectively, it’s beaten down the door to every newspaper and website it could, giving the stories it’s uncovered increasing visibility, and eventually promoted it’s stories right onto the editorial page of the Potomac News, and the Prince William County Extra section of the Washington Post. Although it will never receive credit from the mainstream media for the tremendous work it has done, I’m happy to give them credit here. The shenanigans in Haymarket would never have come to light had it not been for this pit-bull of a local website latching it’s jaws on the town’s government and never letting go.

Increasingly I get questions from folks about what it takes to have a successful website. Most start out with the idea that they’re going to be a Michelle Malkin clone, pontificate on what is being said in the newspapers and on television, and perhaps they can make a difference. That’s not the case. Anyone wanting to make a difference should do exactly what townofhaymarket.info has done, focus narrowly on what’s happening right around them, and uncover all of the stories that your neighbors should know, but aren’t being informed of. Do a good job, and instead of writing about what the local newspaper said last evening, the local paper will be talking about what you said, although they’ll never, ever acknowledge that they got the story from you if they possibly can.

The Town of Haymarket may soon get the opportunity to clean up a disturbing mess. That opportunity exists only because a citizen leveraged the power of the internet, pushed his story hard, and moved what might have been the subject of private conversations among the local insiders onto the editorial pages of the local newspaper and into the public consciousness. Anyone who wants that Norman Rockwell picture to be their small town reality only needs to step up to the keyboard. Nothing prevents local corruption and abuse more than a well informed electorate.