Big Potato trashed by local Paper

I am sick of the Southern Highland News. 
As a "local paper" it is the worst of the worst.

I have worked with a variety of Local Papers across NSW, Victoria and Queensland over 30 plus years. But the laziness of the editorial staff at the Southern Highland News (in Bowral) is breathtaking.

Big Potato with Daffodils planted by the community.

Today they have run a "story" about the Big Potato, and took the chance to put in the boot into the "Big Turd". They even wrongly claimed that it had been vandalised by the addition of a "face" -  a papier mache version of the cartoon character Mr Potato Head.

This was not an act of vandalism - far from it. It was welcomed by the local Chamber of Commerce and the community. You should have seen the numbers of people lining up to have their photos taken with the "Mr Potato Head" Face!

But the local paper has taken their comments from a book about Big Things.

They claim it has not been cared for by the local community.

Working bee at the Big Potato in June 2008

Wrong.
I wrote about a major Upgrade to the grounds back in June 2008.

Roden Mauger was heavily involved in the
upgrading of the surrounds - the path in particular.

I wrote about the Face back in March 2010.

Big Potato with face, in park-like setting.

Letters were sent to the Paper when it mistakenly claimed in March 2010 that the "face" was the work of vandals. But there is no corporate memory left in the Rural Press, and the Southern Highland News in particular.

Bring back Robyn Murray, I say. She was the last decent journalist to grace that Paper - and she left the Southern Highland News back in November 2009.

Lazy journalists will "eat their own children" (as the saying is).
It is easier to destroy a local community's reputation than to send a journalist out 35 kilometres to Robertson, to check the facts of the story. Or even to open their own archives, and see what has been written in the "letters", to correct previously published false and lazy stories.