#sun chronicle

[ianfitzgerald-blog]

Two articles from this past week in anticipation of next week’s performance at the Newport Folk Festival:

I answered a few questions that the Red Line Roots blog had about Newport, songwriting, and my upcoming projects.

And my hometown newspaper, The Sun Chronicle, published a piece about my time there and what I’m up to now.

photo by Brian Carroll

[the--phoenix--has--risen]

It makes me incredibly uncomfortable to post anything that alludes to where I live... but this is an exception.

Recently in my town (try within the past 2-ish years) there have been a few students at my high school diagnosed with cancer. One girl was never diagnosed and she died her sophomore year from a brain tumor.

Two current students are currently undergoing treatment and my school banded together to raise money to help with hospital costs/food for the families/gas money for driving back and forth/whatever they need it for. This news paper has covered the piece. They didn't go into super detail because there are bigger stories (like the Aaron Hernandez trial and conviction). Understandable, but there is still an actual article about the cause (which btw this author is also battling cancer and just recently graduated from this high school which is WHY this received this well written article).

On the disgusting other hand, this “news” paper did not even write an article. They had a picture with a headline that alluded to alcohol use. This is an article about students who are battling cancer and are still also trying to finish their education. This is the article I could find, an apology because they don’t even have the picture on their website. All it had was a small headline and a blurb that said “It was for a good cause.”

I honestly am just so disgusted with how this was handled I cannot even put it into words. I am irritated, disgusted, and anyone who considers themselves a journalist should be embarrassed to say they work in the same field as the asshole from the Sun Chronicle.