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Calling out the SLO New Times Shredder

April 18, 2019

SLO New Times Editor Camillia Lanham

OPINION by T. KEITH GURNEE

This week, one of my friends told me that my name was in the April 11 issue of the SLO New Times and The Shredder again. Since I don’t read the New Times anymore, my friend read to me what it said.

The Shredder tried to drag me into the Grover Beach homeless controversy (something I know very little about) urging opponents of the homeless shelter to contact me (calling me the “King of the NIMBYS”) to help them fight it. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but this is the first time I’ve heard that one.

The Shredder, who takes great joy in reveling and thriving in the salacious, is nothing more than an anonymous propagator of hate, rumor, and nastiness who doesn’t have the courage or decency to disclose his or her name. Content to hide behind a shroud of secrecy while tossing slanderous hand grenades at those he or she reviles, The Shredder is quite simply a coward.

But this latest jab caused me to reflect upon how far our two local printed newspapers have descended into irrelevance. The slant, bias, and inaccuracies of the Tribune and the New Times have relegated themselves to our local version of “fake news.”

By contrast, Cal Coast News and reporter Karen Velie does far and away the best job of true investigative reporting on the Central Coast, far better than our local print media. It was CCN who followed the case and broke the news with a video about the city employee cold-cocking a young woman at Mr. Ricks bar, only to have the Tribune report it two days later.

This week, the Shredder actually complemented Velie on breaking that story while dissing her out of professional jealousy for losing a legal battle that she will ultimately win. After all, it was Velie who exposed the waste and corruption of the Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA), not the Tribune or New Times.

It was Velie who uncovered the unreported contributions by the marijuana barons to the winners of the last city elections, prompting the panic-stricken victors to quickly amend their campaign-finance reports, a story utterly ignored by the Tribune and the New Times in the interest of protecting their darlings on the City Council.

So thanks to CCN for being the only locally consistent provider of the truth. As for the Shredder, grow up and get a life! At least this writer is not afraid to sign and stand by what he writes.


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So sad that the New Times has to be so hateful and vengeful towards a fellow journalist.

Don’t they realize that Karen Velie’s fate could be their own. What if the New Times actually did investigative reporting and they actually did print it and they actually stood behind their reporting by not backing down to a malicious lawsuit. And only to have lost that lawsuit due to extreme perjury by the plaintiff. But also remember that DA Don Dow does not pursue perjury in civil cases even if you loose over a million dollars over obvious fabrications and lies.


Just look at this current issue of New Times. It is not a newspaper, it’s an entertainment guide and no more. And how dare they criticize Velie when they make no attempt to report real news other than the snarky, immature and poorly researched comments in the cowardly no byline Shredder.


48

Bitter, much?


-41

Bitter? No. Disappointed? Yes.


9

And it’s James Wagstaffe, team Adam Hill Cartel lawyer, who continues to threaten the free press by filing malicious lawsuits to stop the reporting of criminal activity. Waggle, you are on notice.


40

Jim Wagstaffe is going to find himself in trouble for his decision to fraud the court.


17

It’s my wish that New Times suffer a slow death, or best, find another Steve Moss as it’s only salvation!!


5

The Shredder is a mean bully, and operates like all bullies — picking on people who have done nothing more than lack the means to respond in kind. The slam at Gurnee was gratuitous and totally without any contextual validity. Hey, didn’t they slam him for being a “developer” when he ran for office not long ago?


Using words like N–BY is a bully’s tactic. The idea is you categorize and denigrate someone so you don’t have to consider what they say, what they stand for, who they are, whether they speak truth, or whatever. It’s schoolyard name-calling designed to put somebody in a lesser place than you are, to stigmatize and diss. It’s indecent name-calling. For a newspaper to do this foments hatred and malice, of which we need no more in this day. Doing this to its supporting population is also stupid.


Shredder will often belittle somebody who’s written something Shredder doesn’t like on social media, in a letter to the editor, or wherever, apparently failing to recognize the Shredder’s not the only one in the world with free speech rights. A newspaper’s belittling people this way appears to be its deliberate way to chill free speech. Often those belittled aren’t in any way public figures.


Shredder was modeled on Santa Barbara’s Angry Poodle, but Poodle is smart, decent and actually clever, while Shredder is none of those. Poodle is also signed, by the wonderful smart and fair reporter Nick Welsh, but Shredder hides behind an iron curtain of anonymity and has nobody on staff of Welch’s quality.


Shredder has outlived its life, and perhaps should itself be sent to one of those huge metal shredders and offed to shredder hell. Would anybody other than its arrogant better-than-you writers miss it?


49

Great writing on how CCN writes about the truth, something we can not find with our local news publications. Like you, I no longer read the Tribune or the New Times (they do make good fire starters, though!) I will continue to follow Velie on Cal Coast News and Cal Coast Times to get “the rest of the story”.


45

The Shredder used to have the pulse of the community, and would write honest and snarky editorials, back when it was written by Steve Moss.


Their current editor, Camillia Lanham, is from out of area, and knows very little about the community. She continually promotes lies that support advertisers or those in politics the New Times loves, like Adam Hill, John Shoals and Jeff Lee.


But to not cover the wrongdoing at the IWMA, because it will expose the perjury that led to the Cal Coast News loss of a lawsuit, is passed unethical.


50

Folks,


I AGREE with Mr. T Keith Gurnee!


The shredder is none other than my neighbor, Camillia Lanham, and she is just as poor of a neighbor as she is a writer, the SLO New Times is now only good for movie listings and art store hours, lol.


Both the SLO TT and the SLO New Times are hopelessly joined at the hip with the corrupt local progressives, and their papers are fake news, Mr. Gurnee is correct.


Never trust folks who buy ink by the barrel, they will talk trash until the ink is gone.


7

How pathetic that they would drag you into this! In that they hide The Shredder’s identity I think it’s fair to pin it on Camillia Lanham. After all, she’s responsible for what goes in that rag, right?


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