Come for the softball schedules, stay for the union-bashing.

It's Pulitzer time, and my thoughts turn to the fact that as news outlets go, Rhode Island’s are kind of lacking. The erringly populist ProJo, with its please-everyone-comment-on-everything website format, is surpassed in quality and journalistic integrity by the papers put out by your average community college. We have an NPR station (of which I am a member, thank you) that’s still high-fiving itself for existing after having broken off from Boston University’s station a few years back. The guy who reads the news for the evening drive-time updates sounds perpetually dazed and confused, mispronouncing words all the time; each time he reads the news it’s like he’s been awakened out of a deep sleep, given a sheet of copy and a candle and told, in an urgent whisper, “Read this aloud, now! The rebels are depending on you!” One time I heard him get to the end of a line of copy and then read the same one over again instead of going on to the next line. It’s simultaneously maddeningly amateurish and just plain adorable. We have a couple of local TV stations, and they’re your typical home-grown teams of anchors and meteorologists, some of whom have been at the job for decades, and a handful of “investigative journalists” who like to run up to people, push a microphone in their face, and shout at them. (“This city worker, whose salary is paid by your taxes, is picking up his dry cleaning… ON THE CLOCK! When we tried to ask him, loudly and very close to his face, why he thinks that’s a good use of taxpayer dollars – your tax dollars! – he punched our sound guy in the neck. See our exclusive video a dozen times at eleven.”)

But at least with ProJo, WRNI, and WPRI, you generally know what you’re going to get, and they generally know who they are. Not so with my little town’s free weekly, the Valley Breeze. This paper has managed to confuse and sometimes enrage me more than any other source of news that I’ve encountered during my years in this state. On the one hand, it’s what you might expect a smallish-town’s free weekly to be: the place you go when you want to find out what they’re serving for lunch at the senior center, learn which Little League team made it to the semifinals, plan the week’s groceries with the weekly flyer from Dave’s, or read a homey and simplistic weekly column about absolutely nothing at all. If you’re opening a business in town, the Breeze will write ten thousand words about it, and they’ll even work your own promotional materials into the article as if they were checked facts. The writing varies from passable to absolutely terrible, but it’s not a place you’d expect to find hard news, and you won’t.

It’s also not a place you’d expect to find hardcore right-wing politics, either, but you will. Amongst the listings for yard sales and church bazaars, the publisher of the Breeze, Tom Ward, uses his little rag as an unopposed soapbox to rail against liberals, Obama, progressives, taxes, Obama, illegal immigrants, and Obama. He’s fond of printing letters from readers who agree with him, and mocking those who don’t. He also gives many inches of type every week to Arlene “I Hate Unions” Violet, former Rhode Island Attorney General, nun, and penner of mob-themed musicals. More recently, the publisher has taken to running syndicated columns written by friends of his, like Marc Dion, who once blamed – wait for it – hippies for ruining everything. (Go on. Read it. It’s a gem.) And then there’s the “Traditional Parenting” column by a complete dick whose advice is sure to help you turn your sweet child of today into the runaway rodeo clown of tomorrow. It’s the kind of child-rearing advice that would make Mr. Brocklehurst say, “Well, now, that’s a little harsh.” (I'd liked to have linked to a lot more of the preceding, but anything over a week old costs $3 to access. Which is dumb.)

But the most troubling thing is that Tom Ward may be a genius. An evil genius, maybe, but a genius nonetheless. Rhode Island towns, including my own, can be incredibly insular. It’s not uncommon for businesses to not have websites and not advertise anywhere… except in the Valley Breeze. There’s information about schools and local goings-on that you can’t find anywhere… except in the Valley Breeze. So many people want their wedding announcements published in the Breeze that there’s an eight-month backlog. (At least, I assume that's why they keep talking about weddings that happened last summer.) The Breeze is free, and every Thursday morning, it’s everywhere. In an overwhelmingly blue state, what better way to trumpet your non-blue opinions than in a paper that everyone needs to stay connected to their community?

Personally, I’ve decided to give up that connection, at least for a  little while, because this paper makes me crazy. Even if I manage to resist the urge to read all of the editorials and skip to the “Living” section, I end up reading about how much Rhea loves April and I just can’t take anymore. So until my daughter is old enough to participate in activities that are chronicled in the Valley Breeze, I’ll just continue to steal the circulars out of a copy every week. 

My conscience is clear.