The Nagy Connection: A Time For Transparency at The Pilot
Drive-by media types love to blast politicians and business-types for “conflicts of interest.” But what happens when professional drive-bys have potential conflicts of their own? What happens when a journalist’s spouse is also a newsmaker in the journalist’s home community?
I had a case one time during my drive-by years. I was a newspaper reporter for a mid-sized daily in the southeastern United States. Our publisher’s wife was the PR person for a large organization in town that happened to be on my beat. Any story I wrote that had ANYTHING to do with Mrs. Publisher’s employer had to be vetted by Mr. Publisher before the editors sunk their claws into it. Mrs. Publisher was able to see my story before it went to print and make any changes she wanted. An outside source, related to our publisher, was given an unfair opportunity to shape her employer’s press coverage. The relationship between our publisher and his wife’s organization was never disclosed to the community or our readers. I thought folks needed to know, in order to evaluate what was being written about Mrs. Publisher’s employer.
Needless to say, I didn’t hang around there very long.
We’ve recently had a conservative revolt regarding our school board. Three conservatives were elected to the seven member board in 2020. Three more — creating a 6-1 conservative majority – got elected in 2022.
I noticed that coverage by The Pilot of the conservative minority was getting more and more hostile. This was happening while the conservative members were gaining support in the community. The Pilot went as far as endorsing the challengers to each of the three conservative candidates in November 2022. That was strange, given that the conservative ticket was dominating popular opinion across the county.
One day, I came across an article about the Moore County Schools published by an. out-of-county drive-by media outlet. They quoted “Moore County Schools spokesperson Catherine Nagy.”
Nagy? Hmmm, I thought. Who else do I know named Nagy? There can’t be many of them here in the county.
The managing editor of The Pilot has been one John Nagy. He and Catherine are married.
John oversees what gets printed in The Pilot. Catherine works to ensure the school system gets the best news coverage possible. Kinda cozy, eh?
I can’t recall Mrs. Nagy ever being quoted by name in the pages of The Pilot. Nor can I ever recall a disclosure of the managing editor’s relationship with the school system’s press flack (with the exception of their wedding announcement) appearing in the paper’s pages .
David Hensley, the ringleader of the school board’s conservative contingent, was elected in 2020. Among other things, he has long been a critic of there being a paid spokesperson for the schools. His position, a very reasonable one, was that the school board chairman and the superintendent could handle speaking for the county schools in a media market this small.
In other words, if Hensley and the conservatives were successful in their takeover bid, Mrs. Nagy’s job security might be in jeopardy. So, The Pilot’s coverage of Hensley, the three conservative candidates in 2022, and fellow conservative board members Bob Levy and Phillip Holmes got increasingly more hostile.
Unsigned op-eds attacking them began appearing in The Pilot. In fact, there’s one in the latest edition of the paper:
[…] Double Bogey, by the Moore County Board of Education, for going ahead with its catered celebration for new board members while most of the county sat in the dark.
The board was required to swear in new members Monday, Dec. 5. But rather than just have a quick meeting to install the new members and elect new board leaders, the board instead went ahead with its planned after-party of Chick-fil-A and Bojangles, in addition to Moon Pies, Royal Crown Cola and Cheerwine. While certainly not a sumptuous banquet, it was a lot more than many Moore County residents had Monday night while more than 35,000 customers remained without power.
Conversely, the Board of Commissioners swore in their four members earlier in the day in Carthage, elected new leaders and then adjourned to get back to the business of managing the county during the crisis.
This is certainly a small thing, but it shows just how tone deaf this new Board of Education, under the leadership of Chairman Bob Levy and Vice Chair David Hensley, could end up being.
The right message here was empathy, that the board stood with the rest of Moore County, instead of patting themselves on the back at Westmoore Elementary School up near the Randolph County line, far removed from the problems everyone else was experiencing. Surely they could have scrapped their party and donated the sandwiches to hungry Duke Energy workers and first responders or others.
Empathy? Let them eat moon pies.[…]
At least — given the way they’ve handled the Nagy family work situation — The Pilot didn’t try to lecture on ethics.
For what it’s worth, the school board took its meeting northward and westward to show respect to a region of the county that has been regularly ignored by the school system’s central office AND The Pilot in recent years.
I admire both the School Board and BOC for going ahead with their planned swearings in. Yes, the School Board could have postponed their celebration however it was all planned before the “blackout”. AND the citizens of upper Moore County were expecting it. So…why question a celebration gone good?
Nancy is correct. While those of us in southern Moore County had a problem, the world outside of southern Moore did not stop. Cancelling something at Westmore would not provide food to the power restoration crews miles away. Kudos to the School Board for what the did.
Of course the “Editorial Board” of The Pilot completely ingnored my Hensley School Board post on this matter.
The editorial clowns at The Pilot left out the fact the the vast majority of North Moore was unaffected by the power outage. They were looking forward to this event, so why should they go with out?
The editorial clowns at The Pilot left out the fact that I wrote of “Americans don’t stop doing good things because bad people do bad things” and I citied the fact that the US didn’t stop the World Series during the dark years of WWII, and the Whos of Whoville did not stop their Christmas Celebration because The Grinch stole their presents and decorations.
The true issues is this. The editorial clowns at The Pilot are mad that they cann no longer control the School Board through fear of editorial hit jobs.
Why?
Because I work for, and respresent The People, not yellow journalists such as Nagy and Woronoff. Therefore, I could not care less what they write, as I know the vast majority of what they write in their editorial pages are lies.
The School Board attorney and I proved one of their editorials to be a lie during the August 9th 2021 School School Board meeting. Its on video, everyone can watch it for themselves.
Didn’t Mrs. Nagy announce her resignation from MCS following the election? She’s still there. If you respond to one of her long-winded novels disguised as editorials from her hubby, you get censured. When will these two love birds finally leave our county?
Ms Nagy’s last day with Moore County Schools is January 9th 2023.
Oh, BTW The Pilot did a Public Records Request for all of the documents related to my rental of the WestMoore Cafeteria for the reception.
I find it interestign that The Pilot is suddenly interested in receptions when they had no objection or issue with the reception following the swearing in of Dr Locklair as the new Superintendent of MCS. Likewise, The Pilot didn’t do a Public Records Request to demand to know how much taxpayer money went to pay for Dr Locklair’s reception.
No, The Pilot is only interested in receptions I gladly pay for to to welcome our newest board members and to allow the citizens of Moore County to mingle and ask questions of their new School Board.