Weekly paper decries Williams "cult of personality"

The local regional papers across NL tend to reflect the point of view of their readership because the writers are so close to the people who buy their papers. At the same time they tend to be fairly conservative in their selection of stories - high on human interest and low on bucking popular waves.

If they are going to criticise government, they are going to go to the local hospital and slag the Health minister for doing a lousy job. In the face of concrete issues like that, general criticisms of overall government direction takes a back seat.

And rarely will a local paper go out of their way to call a popular Premier out on the carpet for an apparently popular conflict. That, conventional wisdom says, doesn't sell papers.

So when you see a piece like this one in the Grand Falls Advertiser, a central NL weekly, you have to take note of it. It says in part:

The domain of personality cults isn’t limited to dictators. There are celebrities, with either fanatical followers or who belong to cults themselves (hello, Tom Cruise). And on the home front, there was our Joey Smallwood, who had many Newfoundlanders by the short hairs for more than 20 years. And while we got into Canada, he was blamed for selling the shop when it came to the Upper Churchill power agreement; brought in a crook from Latvia, Alfred Valdemanis, into his government, forced resettlement, and the list goes on.

And now, Premier Danny Williams is riding on the waves of his own personality cult. Danny can do no wrong, judging by the polls.

But are the masses always right?

Check out the rest of the piece here.