Grand Forks Herald Editor Has Trouble Finding A Hotel Room In Western ND, Writes Whiny Column About It

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jan 14, 2012
8:57pm

Former Grand Forks Herald editor Mike Jacobs, inexplicably named by the paper’s parent company Forum Communications to be in charge of a new news bureau covering the oil patch on the opposite side of the state from where Jacobs lives, had some trouble recently finding a hotel room in Medora.

So of course he took to the pages of his newspaper to complain about it.

You see, western North Dakota isn’t the sleepy wasteland of dying rural communities it was just a few years. It is perhaps the fastest growing piece of geography in the country right now, and anti-oil liberals like Jacobs hate it. As unprecedented levels of investment flow into the state, driving huge leaps in prosperity among most citizens, the slower pace of life citizens of this part of the country have enjoyed is ending.

Because things change. That’s progress. It’s childish to think that any part of our society is going to persist, for eternity, as some sort of Rockwellian time capsule. And shame on people like Jacobs for setting that expectation, because it’s that sort of attitude (almost always expressed by people who live far, far away from the communities in question) which holds this country back.

Jacobs’ attitudes about the development of North Dakota’s resources – oil, gas, coal and even agriculture – are unhealthy for the state, but will no doubt permeate the reporting this “news bureau” he’s heading up will produce.

On a related note, this passage from Jacobs’ column made me laugh out loud:

Oil is the big story, of course, so big that it overshadows other stories in the state. One of these is a boom in farm profits. Another is the expansion of the state’s manufacturing base. Still a third is the success of its higher education system.

Apparently, “success” for Jacbos is a university system that is costing North Dakota taxpayers 76% more over the last decade to educate just a 17% increase in students and is notorious wasting and abusing taxpayer dollars while working hard to avoid any sort of public accountability.

Jacobs doesn’t belong in western North Dakota, covering stories about the state’s oil boom. He belongs in an ivory tower office somewhere where his sanctimonious navel-gazing will be better appreciated.