I feel like ranting, ranting, RANTING!

The other day one of our reporters went to a First Nations school board meeting. It’s newly formed and a fairly big news story as it’s the first First Nations school board in the area.
Our education beat reporter was on the scene of the first meeting. It ended with them asking for a native reporter to cover the next one.
I got upset by this. We have a native reporter, but she doesn’t cover education. I would think the school board would want the best person to do the job and not someone because of their race.
North Battleford is surrounded by reserves, so the paper tries to pick up native subscribers by having a First Nations page. We cater to them so much that it’s even one of the four colour pages and is always filled with good news. The latest pow wow, the new school and whatever else good comes our way. Anything bad goes in the regular section of the paper.
When I heard they wanted a native reporter, I went on a little racist tirade of my own. I suggested we put all the native criminal activity on to the First Nations page. They do account for 80 per cent of the crime in the city.
If you looked at Sunday’s paper the front page has three court stories on it. Two are aboriginal murders, the third is how chiefs misspent $4 million.
I don’t mind having a First Nations page, but asking for someone because of their skin colour is absolute crap.



I also wanted to rant about the looting going on in New Orleans. Isn’t the flooding of 80 per cent of the city and the deaths of more than 100 people enough? Is there people out there who actually have to take what little valuables are left.
It’s too bad these weren’t the people that drown in the flood.