By RICARDO KLEMENT
Staff Writer
HARLINGEN, Texas - A stunning final push by his supporters carried Tony Chapa and his MyHarlingenNews.com to victory in The Tribune's weeklong poll asking readers to name their favorite local Blog. The final tally was MyHarlingenNews.com 85 to MyLeaderNews.com's 63.
It was Jerry Deal's MyLeaderNews carrying the load for most of the previous six days, in slim and wide leads, but MyHarlingen News saw a flurry of last-minute votes after Chapas rallied his many backers.
It is so: MyHarlingenNews.com is the city's Best Blog - by a respectable winning margin.
The defeat likely will be ill-received by rabid supporters of MyLeaderNews.com, many of whom believe it is Deal who brings the community better material. That may or may not be so, but Tony Chapa rests easy knowing crunch time always brings out the best in his Blog and in his supporters - all who believe wholeheartedly that MyLeaderNews.com pushes drug-using baseball players and perceive that it backs city officials interested in keeping the city tied to its segregationist past.
Of late, MyHarlingenNews.com has kept hammering at officials Deal endorses with an endless stream of fawning, supportive write-ups on MyLeaderNews.com.
"Deal is Old School," wrote one commenter in an Email to The Tribune. "He is writing about a town he remembers, from way back when things were different. Today's Harlingen is not Jerry Deal's Harlingen. He is backing the losing side..."
Wrote another, "Tony Chapa may not be a newsman, but he's the one on the right track if we want to look to the future, not the past. Jerry Deal? Not for me, nope."
The poll will be repeated in three months to see if the mood of the city has changed.
We were taken by Chapa's dogged approach to seek change in Harlingen. The town is seen elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas as a falling town, a community desperately needing - and seeking - change. In the writings we have seen on MyLeadernews.com, that progressive verve is simply not there. Perhaps it is the "Energy" aspect of the equation - Tony Chapa has it and the much-older Jerry Deal doesn't seem to have it.
The Tribune did not investigate reports that one of MyLeaderNews.com's backers had voted as many as 25 times. The final count made that allegation moot. We were given the name of that individual by a reliable source. Ultimately, we decided that the individual in question is a ten-percenter whose contributions to the city's future largely will be nil...
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4 comments:
Hey, I like your new format, really good change. I guess Myharlingennews won.
Man, the bloggs are just as divided as the town.
One thing I have learned about the blogs lately, it is that there is so much dislike between Jerry and Tony, at one time they were friends.
ANONYMOUS:...Thanks for the kind words about our New Look. We get easily bored, yes. As for Tony Chapa's MyHarlingenNews.com, well, it was one helluva rally. Frankly, he deserved to win. MyHarlingenNews is on the right path in this fight... - Editor.
There are rants at myleadernews,about the most popular poll.
With much interest I read Mr. Deals resume.
The other day on the San Antonio Express, there was an article about a firefighter who had fabricated his life expierences. A check about his record revealed that man had never worked for the NYFD, or had been a colonel in the Marines.
I have problems believing things as such, especially when they can't be proven.
Of course Mr. Deals followers swear by the long list of accomplishments, I don't know if it is true or false. At this point, I have trouble believing anything.
Anonymous:...Jerry Deals's life as a Journalist is fact. Our take on him, however, is that he is selective when applying his best Journalism tenets to the politicians of Harlingen. There are some he simply gives a pass to, and that is never good. But he's a grown man, not that he's fooling anyone, however... - Editor
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