Introduction and Background
On June 16, 2015 of last year an article was posted in an area publication calling itself MountainXpress, by a writer named Able Allen. Prior to being contacted by Able Allen I'd never heard of him or this publication. Today, I'd like to give you the other side of the story which they don't cover, and give you my perspective of his piece, which I have serious doubts came about in the spontaneous pursuit of journalism.
In this MountainXpress article, which is dramatically labeled New media alerts pages deliver instant info and strife to rural WNC counties, Able Allen goes on to address a new trend of localized reporting, a trend which Avery County Alerts is in part given credit and I specifically am named by multiple, one of which we'll leave unnamed despite their direct involvement since to my knowledge they are legally mentally adjudicated. To immediately address my involvement which is brought up, I did start some of these alerts pages, and I am a administrator and contributor as suggested on multiple pages. It was never a secret in any way, this was just a manipulative game certain people were playing. They routinely tried to make it as if it was 'just me', despite the article admitting otherwise. I didn't placate to it, and that was the extent of the legitimacy of any secrecy on my part.
When I was contacted by Able Allen I had no motivation to participate as I didn't trust the intent due to ongoing matters with the various pages and the timing of the request. I also notified other participants of Able's request for statements/interview and they also chose not to participate. To this day I'm still convinced we made the right choice. I've attempted to contact Able Allen and Jeff Fobes, the publisher of MountainXpress to get their side of how they came across the topic at all to have motivation to publish about it, and if they were approached by someone(s) to do it, and if so, who exactly. As of this time I have ironically received no response despite Able Allen's former alleged desire for a conversation. I continue to think that the point of this was always to be a hit piece. If this was a manipulation by a party mentioned hereinafter or a collaborative effort of the two and/or others, I can't answer at this time, and MountainXpress is suspiciously quiet in discussing the topic to clear it up.
To read the rest of this article please use the following link. It's HTML formatted, and doesn't copy over easily due to numerous supporting images and hyperlinks.
http://averyalerts.com/publications/Mountainxpress_Concern_For_The_Strife_Of_The_Insular.html