![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/investigativepost.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/off-news-1.png?ssl=1\")
<\/a>Jeanne Vinal, who represents Amherst in the Erie County Legislature, isn\u2019t shy about questioning or criticizing the operations of the Erie County Sheriff\u2019s Department. Good for her. She\u2019s about the only one in county government with the stones to do so, as Sandy Tan reported in The Buffalo News<\/a>.<\/p>\nThere\u2019s certainly a lot to question. There\u2019s the cover-up involving the antics of the just-departed D.J. Granville. Sheriff John Garcia\u2019s penchant for helicopters, take-home cars and other new shiny toys. The continuing inmate deaths at the Erie County Holding Center. You get the picture.<\/p>\n
Vinal, a civil rights lawyer by trade, was elected to the county Legislature in 2019. Her questioning and criticism of the sheriff\u2019s office has raised the ire of Garcia and Republican Party headquarters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The News paraphrased Vinal as saying \u201cshe is challenging the Sheriff\u2019s Office when she believes the office is protecting cops who have broken the public trust or promoting policies and spending plans that hurt taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, for all his liberal credentials, has been largely unwilling to challenge either Garcia or his predecessor, Tim Howard. Ditto for Vinal\u2019s colleagues on the county Legislature.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Buffalo\u2019s Common Council could use someone like Vinal. Council members have been loath to question police even in the face of obvious officer misconduct and departmental dysfunction.<\/p>\n
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Want to know why traditional news outlets are struggling? The reasons are many, including a loss of advertising revenue necessary to pay for news operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Semafor<\/a> reports that \u201cBy 2028, Google, Meta, and Amazon will each bring in more ad revenue than all of traditional media ad spending combined, according to projections from EMarketer, echoing similar findings<\/a> from WPP last year.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports on the decline of local television news<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wrote The Times:<\/p>\n \u201cOnce the primary source of community news and information, local TV news stations are struggling with their own tough story, one marked by declining ratings, stagnant revenue growth and rapid shifts in how media is consumed in the internet era.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Alan Pergament of The Buffalo News reports on how the merger of\u00a0 Nexstar and Tegna is likely to play out at Channels 2 and 4<\/a>. Newsroom journalists, he said, are reluctant to speak on the record, but those who have recently left the business shared their thoughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wrote Pergament:<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s good for anyone, whether they work in news, watch the news, or simply care about the freedom of the press,\u201d said former Channel 2 anchor Kate Welshofer, who will become a full-time lecturer in the journalism school at St. Bonaventure University next fall.<\/p>\n Erica Brecher, who had good experiences working in news at both Channel 2 and Channel 4, wrote: \u201cBut I cannot in good conscience say that having a single-company-owned duopoly in Buffalo is good for local news jobs or viewers.<\/p>\n Juries last week ruled that social media platforms are responsible for the harm they inflict on kids<\/a>.<\/p>\n FCC Chairman Brendan Carr crowed the other day about Trump\u2019s success in undermining \u201cfake news\u201d outlets<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, nonfiction book publishing is under duress<\/a> due to declining sales and industry layoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wrote The New Republic:<\/p>\n These developments suggest a rough future for a certain kind of writing: nonfiction that\u2019s based on reportage more than on personal experience or celebrity.<\/p>\n A sampling of last week\u2019s abuses, outrages and consequences of having Donald Trump as president:<\/p>\n The latest Doonesbury<\/a> offers the King\u2019s advice (and I don\u2019t mean Elvis) on Saturday\u2019s No Kings protests.<\/p>\n Ken Burns\u2019 shop has a new documentary coming out, this one on Henry David Thoreau, one of my heroes. The three-parter starts Monday on PBS. Here\u2019s the trailer<\/a>, a review<\/a> and the 22-minute documentary<\/a> that led to the Burns production.<\/p>\n \t\t\tposted 26 minutes ago – March 30, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal isn’t your typical lawmaker. Plus, media news and the latest from Trump World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,69208,29806,138,137,2341,50],"class_list":["post-152190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-county-government","tag-erie-county-legislature","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-media","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}