AP: I don’t like WRAL & Jim Goodmon because…
There is genocide in Africa… Muslims taking over Europe… Tennessee fires its Football Coach… There are more “casting couches” in Hollywood than there are screenwriters moonlighting as waiters…
… Meanwhile in Raleigh NC, The City of Oaks has itself a full-blown Brouhaha over A Christmas Parade. … God Bless America! 
A Brouhaha Over A Christmas Parade… that sounds like the plot for a Hallmark Christmas Movie starring Dean Cain and Lori Loughlin?
This Brouhaha is between The Greater Raleigh Merchants Assn (GRMA) and Capitol Broadcasting Corp (CBC) / WRAL-TV5.
At the end of this I don’t like WRAL & Jim Goodmon because… diatribe; I will post a copy of a letter that GRMA Brd of Directors sent last week to its members explaining this brouhaha.
How did I obtain a copy of this letter? I used “a Russian hacker” like everyone else does. No kidding… It IS the actual letter from GRMA,
WRAL “suits” come across as arrogant jackasses which is reason enough to post this. This parade brouhaha is “molehillish” compared to “mountains” such as genocide and firing a FB coach, but it provides an excuse to bash Jim Goodmon.
If you know chapter and verse what I am about to detail about Jim Goodmon Sr. just skip on down to the GRMA letter.
###
Jim Goodmon’s uncle A.J. Fletcher built Capitol Broadcasting Co / WRAL -TV-5 into a money-printing machine in the 50-60s. That’s when Jesse Helms began his televised editorials on the station. A.J. Fletcher and Jess
e Helms are both long gone from WRAL-TV5 these days. … in EVERY possible way.
In 1973, Uncle AJ decided to turn over the reins of his money-printing media empire to his favorite nephew – James Fletcher Goodmon – rather than to assorted other cousins. Such internecine machinations are usually quite juicy. This one probably was.
For the next 30+ years, James Fletcher Goodmon used his position as “local media mogul” for all sorts of benevolent purposes.
Jim became, arguably, Raleigh’s #1 City Father. Nay, he became The Triangles’ Metro Father.
Examples of his philanthropic largess included… the 1988 US Olympic Festival… a Post Desert Storm Salute To The Troops… an annual high school wrestling tournament… free azaleas,,, saving The Durham Bulls in the 90s … and funding a multitude of not-for-profit charities thru his and his wife’s A.J. Fletcher Foundation.
A constant during Goodmon’s first 30 years as steward of Uncle AJ’s empire was a staunch determination to remain Apolitical. “Apolitical” means without any apparent political bias or “leaning”. This applied to him as well as to his company and its employees.
This determination was so “staunch” that Goodmon assigned one of his executives to regularly patrol the company’s employee parking lot for ANY indication of any CBC employee’s political leanings. Political bumper stickers of ANY leaning were not allowed on CBC property.
How’s THAT for “staunch”?
So how did CBC/WRAL get from “there” to what it is “now”?
About 12-15 years ago Jim Goodmon had a terminal attack of Limo Liberal-itis. Some observers “credit” his wife Barbara with infecting him with a fatal dose of the insidious disease. Maybe those “some” are correct. I don’t know… but I know “Dr Jekyll 
Jim” became “Mr Hyde Jim” for real during the 2008 Presidential campaign.
NOTE: The Goodmons have “a right” to be card-carrying goggle-eyed Limo Liberals. I have a right not to like “Limo Liberals”. No one is having their “rights” trampled on here.
A “Limousine Liberal”, if you are unfamiliar with the term, is a person of considerable wealth, often inherited, who develops intense feelings of “guilt” for being a member of The Lucky Sperm Club.
That “guilt” drives them to liberal political causes where they “write checks” but prefer not to have to get too close to “the poor”… “minorities” … or any other yucky elements of the Democrat voting base. Often times those “checks” are not as generous as they want you to assume. Liberals are more about “symbolism” than “substance”.
It is not coincidental that The Goodmons live at ground-zero of Raleigh’s notorious Inside The Beltline enclave (“ITB”). Until about ten years ago you could not swing a cat by its tail within ITB without hitting 6-8 members of The Lucky Sperm Club. If you swung that cat at the Carolina Country Club Sunday Brunch you’d hit a minimum of three dozen “Lucky Spermers” easy.
Thru death and “in-fill” the demographics of ITB are changing. That is a favorite topic of Blondie’s. Blondie HATES “in-fill”. “In-fill” is a nasty real estate term for “lets bulldoze that cute little cottage… and squeeze in another tacky McMansion”.
Every city / town has its version of such an enclave where its Lucky Spermers gossip about one another and plot to steal each other’s maids and nannies.
Through the last half of the 20th century, the primo gathering of Lucky Spermers was The Terpsicorean (Debutante) Ball where the next generation of Lucky Spermers met one another… to insure the continuation of bloodlines, fraternity / sorority pledging, transfer of real estate and law firm partnerships tracks.
Such was/is the world of Jim Goodmon.
So thorough was Jim Goodmon’s Jekyll / Hyde transformation that, almost overnight, any CBC employee NOT displaying an “I LOVE OBAMA… and You Better To If You Want To Work Here” sticker was not going to be around long.
At a MLK Day luncheon around 07-08, Jim noted to his audience that he was…
… finding it more and more difficult to own a news organization that reported news he preferred not to have to hear… and that he preferred not to broadcast to his viewers on public airwaves.
Jim Goodmon set about solving that problem he was having.
That was about the time I began to NOT LIKE Jim Goodmon at all.
- Then Jim began bankrolling Rev. Wm “Bully” Barber and his Hoot ‘n Hates at the NC General Assembly. It was a Goodmon toadie – Peter Anlyan – that devised the infamous “at least 80,000, maybe more” faux press release that Barber still uses in his resume to further his national cred as a major league race-baiter.
- Jim hired a gang of radical left-wing dumpster-divers with one objective – “do whatever it takes” to discredit the Republican members of NC State government… “WHATEVER it takes”.
- Those charities supported by The AJ Fletcher Foundation became a rogues’ gallery of VERY radical far left-wing organizations.
- He created NC Spin giving his boyhood pal Tom Campbell a “job” as the moderator of a weekly WRAL political roundtable where Jim’s political hacks could snort and rant before “a state-wide TV audience of 100s”.
NC Spin is in its death throes. A toe tag expected to be attached any week now. Reportedly, Jim is sick of seeing John Hood on HIS TV station. I can certainly appreciate that, can’t you?
UPDATE: NC Spin will spin no more, at least NOT on WRAL-TV5. This political nerd-fest HAS finally been evicted from WRAL’s Western Blvd studio. …. But fear not you dozens of NC Spin fans… it will be moving to WUNC-TV effective in January.
When your TV station’s image deteriorates to the point the only “nice thing” people can say is “Fish the Weatherman seems like a good guy”… you have a problem.
A year or so ago… Jim Goodmon’s son – Jimmy Goodmon Jr (“Junior”) was elevated to Dad’s corner office. Assuming the appearance of “decision-maker” for Uncle AJ’s / Dad’s Radical Left-Wing Propaganda Empire.
That frees Jim Sr to work full-time on his ideological obsession- become George Soros of The Triangle …. Every retiree needs a hobby.
It also allows Jim Sr. to lay the blame for this Christmas Parade Mess solely on “Junior”. Clever Jim… very clever.
And a clever seque… huh?
BUT AgentPierce… you didn’t mention all the WRAL on-air staff mysteriously choosing to leave/retire within several weeks of each other. A coincidence?
Dunno… could be. Maybe “Junior” wants to sell the Empire and move to da beach.
Here’s the letter from GRMA about “what WRAL did”. WARNING… IT IS LONG!
###
.
TO: Local Raleigh and Greater Raleigh Merchants Assoc:
So here is the info straight from the organizer and owner to the rights of the Raleigh Christmas Parade, the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association. GMRA, Shop Local Raleigh and their members work hard to bring our community this parade. Don’t forget the Parade is next Saturday Nov 18, starting at 9:40am. Please see below, if you are interested in the full scoop!
Letter to our Members
Members: Many of you have been asking why commercials for the Raleigh Christmas Parade are being broadcast on both WTVD-ABC11 and WRAL-NBC 5 this year, even though WTVD was the awarded exclusive broadcast rights for this year’s parade by the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association (GRMA). Questions are also being asked about the continuing newspaper articles that are trying to portray some type of “feud” between the GRMA and WRAL.
Because of this situation, the board of GRMA wanted to let all of our members know the facts involved in this situation, so that the membership understands the actual events involved.
The Raleigh Christmas Parade is a Raleigh tradition, and has existed for 73 years. The parade has always been organized by the GRMA, and the GRMA owns the rights to the parade. For a number of years, the parade has secured a title sponsor to help underwrite the costs of organizing and presenting the parade. Selling the parade title sponsorship helps our non-profit association do the work we do promoting businesses like yours and working to keep more of your hard-earned money in Raleigh.
For the past decade, WRAL has been awarded the contract for the title sponsorship. As part of that contract, WRAL was awarded exclusive broadcast rights for the parade. WRAL was also permitted to sell the Gold, Silver and Bronze sponsorships packages to other businesses in our community, and WRAL was allowed to retain 100% of those sponsorship dollars. The contract with WRAL ended with the 2016 parade.
During the summer and fall of 2017, GRMA engaged in a lengthy negotiation process with WRAL over sponsorship of the 2017 parade. GRMA wanted to ensure that WRAL would perform its contract obligations as the exclusive broadcast partner.
During the past years of the contract, WRAL had failed to live up to certain contract obligations. GRMA and WRAL were unable to come to mutually agreeable terms for the 2017 parade sponsorship, so GRMA was left with no option but to seek out another broadcast and title sponsor for the 2017 parade.
GRMA secured an offer from WTVD that was superior to WRAL’s offer made during the negotiating process. Under the terms of the prior contract with WRAL, GRMA was required to present any bona-fide offers to WRAL. GRMA presented the WTVD offer to WRAL, and only at that time did WRAL present a reasonable proposal to GRMA. Both offers were then presented to the GRMA board of directors and both stations were invited to make presentations to the board.
After reviewing the proposals and hearing the presentations, the GRMA board of directors unanimously voted to award the 2017 Raleigh Christmas Parade title sponsorship to WTVD-ABC11. WRAL was notified of this decision on October 3. On October 23, GRMA made the announcement of the title sponsor contract with WTVD public.
Since learning that the 2017 contract was awarded to WTVD, WRAL has retaliated against GRMA in many ways. In past years, WRAL asked other media outlets to respect its broadcast rights when it had the exclusive media partner contract and not broadcast the parade. The other media stations in the market acted as responsible corporate citizens and respected the exclusive broadcast contract for the parade. WRAL however has refused to live by the same code.
On October 20, WRAL-5 filmed a commercial with the GRMA parade Santa, and began running commercials and social media ads stating to the public that it would be airing the parade live on its network, posting information on its website about the parade and its plans to broadcast and running paid Google ads directing the public to its website.
WRAL also had its anchors and employees posting news about the broadcast of the 73rd annual parade on their personal and professional social media accounts. WRAL engaged in a campaign to confuse the public and create the impression that it was somehow still involved with the parade. Nowhere in any of these promotions did WRAL mention or refer to the GRMA.
It was also at this time that GRMA learned that WRAL had submitted paperwork to the City requesting street closures in conjunction with the parade to set up its own broadcast booth in an effort to film and broadcast the parade in its entirety.
On Monday, October 30, we were notified WRAL has since pulled permits for a second broadcasting area. WRAL has continued to air commercials, post blogs about the parade and share on social media in an attempt to confuse the public that it is in some manner associated with the Raleigh Christmas Parade and that it is a sponsoring entity of what belongs to GRMA and you, our members.
The reality is that WRAL has chosen to ignore the parade contract. WRALs actions are diminishing the value of the parade to be marketed as the parade presented by GRMA/Shop Local Raleigh.
WRAL’s conduct is lowering the parade’s associated sponsorship value which will, in turn, hurt Shop Local Raleigh.
The parade has long been a gift to our community, a gift we are proud to present. As you know, the parade is very expensive to produce and execute. With WRAL broadcasting the parade on its station, it is taking away viewership from the official broadcast for its own financial gain and in an effort, we believe, calculated to harm GRMA and retaliate for its loss of the parade contract.
WRALs action will hurt the parade and put it in a difficult financial position in the future.
The parade is an opportunity to bring awareness to Shop Local Raleigh and our members. WRAL has removed GRMA and Shop Local Raleigh from all of its advertising in connection with the parade. WRAL’s public statements and advertising are confusing to the public and do not mention that GRMA is doing the work required to organize and run the parade.
We have all been stunned about WRAL’s actions.
The mission statement of WRAL’s owner, Capitol Broadcasting Corporation, states that: as a community leader, CBC will strive to ensure that ethics and moral standards are clearly set forth in everything we do. Capitol Broadcasting’s Code of Ethics states: We commit to being a responsible, caring, corporate partner in the community. We serve as a role model of ethical and responsible business to improve the well-being of our community.
CBC’s management Code of Ethics states: We uphold our reputation and image by observing the highest standards of legal and ethical conduct in business dealing. We do not sacrifice our code of ethics in pursuit of winning.
Ask yourselves whether WRAL’s actions meet those standards.
Where do we go from here? We are small business owners, we are hard-working and we are the backbone of our local economy. We will continue to work for what’s right, for what’s good and for what’s in the best interest of our community and you, our members.
As for WRAL and Capitol Broadcasting, we can ask nothing more of them than to do the right thing, do the ethical thing, do the responsible thing, and not broadcast the 2017 Greater Raleigh Merchants Association Shop Local Raleigh-Raleigh Christmas Parade, a parade that does not belong to WRAL or Capitol Broadcasting.
We appreciate your membership and your support of the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association and Shop Local Raleigh!
Here’s to another wonderful Raleigh Christmas Parade, may it not be our last!
Board of Directors Greater Raleigh Merchants Association
Shop Local Raleigh
###
Do you check NCNewsAndViews twice a day? You should…. LINK
###
More of AgentPierce – LINK
Blondie’s Latest…
BobLee’s Latest…
