It's one thing for newspaper reporters to write about advertisers only because the advertisers buy ads, quite another for said reporters to cover an important community individual. The latter scenario is very much where Orange County Register reporter Tom Berg's Sunday story on mega-developer William Lyon falls. “The General” is one of the most important people in Orange County history, in the same way Serra was, so almost anything the man does affects county residents.
We add the “almost” qualifier because Berg's focus on Lyon yesterday falls under this category. Lyon was about to fly a B-17 bomber from Orange County to Washington, D.C.–huh? Is this a rare occurrence nowadays? Not really. Is Lyon setting a world record? No. This pedophile protector (strange that Berg doesn't mention that in his breathless list of Lyon charitable causes) is flying a plane–nothing more, nothing less. Yet Berg builds his man-crush throughout the piece, and spills his load at the end, describing Lyon as an “Orange County icon, standing in flight suit and boots, his gray mane combed straight back.” Been talking to Dillow lately, Tom? Meanwhile, a quick look at the Sunday classifieds finds a full-page ad for William Lyon Home, just a bit of the mucho moolah Lyon has spent in advertising at the Reg for decades.
