Pitch editor / writer David Hudnall
Nothing like getting convicted of the same crime twice…
That’s what happened to Westport businessman Bill Nigro when he walked into a neighborhood meeting Thursday and found out the hard way that new Pitch editor David Hudnall had slipped him the sausage on the zine’s website.
“I got blindsided, I went to a neighborhood meeting and everybody was like, ‘Hoo boy, the Pitch doesn’t like you, do they?'” Nigro says. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And it was written by the editor of the Pitch. They wrote a story about our street privatization and what a jack-off I am and didn’t even contact me – didn’t even try to contact me. Where did he go to journalism school? I mean, if you’re going to crucify someone you might as well ask for a comment.”
Ostensibly, the story was about Westport’s efforts to keep guns out of the party zone, but instead of addressing the subject in the lead, “They shoved it up my ass in the first sentence,” Nigro says.
Hudnall began by screen grabbing a couple of out-of-context quotes from a four month-old, lame newspaper story, then trashing Nigro for “running his mouth in the Star.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one magazine I won’t be running my mouth in and that’s the Pitch,” Nigro quips. “All I was really saying is that the history of 3 a.m. hip-hop clubs here is bad. They’ve had a lot of violence. And both the the Star and the Pitch – especially the Pitch – took my quotes out of context and made me out to be a racist.”
By not bothering to do any of his own reporting, Hudnall exaggerated an already misleading characterization of Nigro based what he had told the newspaper.
“The Star reporter asked me several times why Westport didn’t have more black nightclubs and why weren’t we playing more hip-hop music,” Nigro says. “So I told him the history of the 3 a.m. liquor licenses in Kansas City and that when they first gave them out there were over 30 of them on the east side of town. And that because of the violence outside of them and complaints from the neighborhoods they started eliminating them. Now there’s only like five.”
Unfortunately that part of Nigro’s quotes didn’t make the cut since it didn’t fit the writer’s narrative of musical discrimination and the branding of Nigro as a country music loving racist.
That said, “Even the Star article didn’t make me come out nearly as racist as the Pitch’s” Nigro says. “Hudnall took everything out of context to make me look as bad as possible. You know if he wanted to write an article and do some more race baiting, why didn’t he do his own journalism and call me up and get his own quotes?”
A local businesswoman concurs.
“Here the Pitch is under new owners trying to make a big splash and instead of writing a new, fresh story, they dig up some quotes from last year,” she says. “And they didn’t even call him, that’s totally lame. They’re showing the kind of paper they’re going to be – that they’re going to trash somebody and not even give them a chance to defend themselves.”
As for Nigro getting taken to the woodshed again, “Poor guy, here he has to fall on his sword a second time and he didn’t even get the chance to run his mouth,” she says. “It’s like the ultimate punishment for a guy who likes to run his mouth – he didn’t even get a chance to, He just walks into a meeting and gets vilified and he didn’t even do anything. Who are they going to burn at the stake next month? It’s like, ‘Okay readers, it’s time to check your old Kansas City Stars.'”
Hudnall could not be reached for comment…
What’s sad is all Bill Nigro does is build up Westport and he has helped as much or more than anyone to save Westport…he lives, eats and breaths that neighborhood. He is a standup guy and deserves our respect.
The Pitch operates under the same Progressive, “Communal Psychosis” that bends us all to the will of the mighty megaphone in the hands of the 4th estate.
Obviously, the Hip/Hop/Rap/Holocaust, marching to the sounds of the Hip/Hop/Rap/ profferings of thugs who make no secret of their animus for “whitey” sucks victims into the propeller while we all pretend that there is no causation, or correlation between the violence and the music.
Repeated verification = justifiable belief.
We live now, in our minds, in fear of despicable, loathsome, lying Commissars like David Hundall, who report to the leaders of our coast to coast American/Cambodian reeducation camp, the offenders who will now be placed in the community stocks for the sin of “Racism”. The entire country is a Star Chamber where the judges who condemn you need no evidence, no truth and no proof, just accusation innuendo and faux outrage at the sins they arbitrarily and capriciously deign an offense.
Fuck David Hundall and the legions of willing, etiolated, white beta males who make this stupid shit possible.
Hip/Hop/Rap clubs bring Hop/Hop/Rap violence.
P.E.R.I.O.D.
“Fuck David Hundall and the legions of willing, etiolated, white beta males who make this stupid shit possible.”
+1000
“I don’t believe in playing hip-hop and rap music and drawing a specific crowd,” he told the paper. “I’m not looking for that. I’ve owned a few country nightclubs, and I’ve had fewer problems out of that crowd. If that makes me racist, fine. If somebody’s offended by that, fine.”
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I don’t know Mr. Nigro, but this quote, if it was actually said, invites trouble. He speaks his mind, then challenges people to say he’s racist. They did and he’s unhappy. If he said this, he has to accept the criticism that goes with it.
And a four-month old article isn’t old. Have his views changed since then?
Read a little more carefully, Sir Paul…
The Star writer baited him repeatedly to address why Westport didn’t have hip-hop clubs and more hip-hop music and…
IN THE CONTEXT OF ANSWERING
Nigro documented the district’s widely reported issues with hip-hop and explained that it was a citywide problem, pointing to the 3 am licenses to the east being reduced from 30 to less than a half dozen today.
In that context, as a businessman, Nigro stated that he wouldn’t want to take the risk inherent with that genre and that he’s done well with other music themes.
What he did not do was make an out-of-the-blue statement that all hip-hop music or fans of that genre were lowlifes or losers, merely that going in that direction was a losing battle.
The somewhat obvious between the lines is were other local businessmen interested in investing in hip-hop clubs in Westport they were free to do so, but for some reason or another nobody was.
And going back over the years from the Harris House in the 1990s violence and crime has been the byproduct of those who have.
Why would any right minded business person risk their capital in an endeavor that has repeatedly yielded such results?
That the Star reporter left out Nigro’s full explanation to make him look racist apparently succeeded, based on your swallowing the out-of-context quotes hook, line and sinker.
Four months isn’t the longest time true, but when you’re embarking upon a new path under new owners and management, is a mindless rehash with zero effort at adding to the story the best course of action?
Had Hudnall taken two minutes to find of what Nigro’s thoughts on the matter were he likely would have realized what the Star had done and might even have broken a little news in correcting the record.
don’t blame them for not havinghip hop clubs…..rap music.
It’s a business decision and if the guy who invests in the area doesn’t want it
…..its his right.
but lets be real…whether its huffington post or breitbart….all the media is messing
with people’s words and qoutes. Its the new “media”…..and we’re all doing it!!!!!!!!!
Have to agree with you here, booms…
Gravely disappointing to see CNN go from a halfway legitimate news organization to a propaganda machine. Especially disappointed in Jake Tapper who I really believed was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
CNN may as well be a segment on Comedy Central. They’re a total joke, and Chris Cilizza, Jake Tapper, & Jim Acosta are the biggest tools in a giant toolshed called CNN. There’s a reason people have been calling them the “Clinton News Network” since the 1990’s. FoxNews and MSNBC are what they are. They don’t pretend to be anything else. CNN pretends to be something they aren’t.
+1
The Pitch isn’t worth an iota of attention since Feruzza and Vockrodt left the building.
Its comical to use the word ‘journalism’ and The Pitch in the same sentence.
You’re probably mostly right, but give ’em credit for at least trying…
Having been down this road, I hate to say it, but the couple that brought the Pitch have no idea what they’re in for. It wasn’t easy putting it on the map and making enough money to rationalize building for the future. That said, they’re in uncharted waters with pretty much everybody from the Star and Village Voice down dropping like flies and/or fighting desperate, sad losing battles.
That said, maybe they will be the ones to solve the survival puzzle and I’ll be the rebel without a clue (wouldn’t be my first time). I have serious doubts about Hudnall being the one to lead them out of the darkness, but we’ll soon see.