Last Bites

7/30/15 cover of SNR

Cosmo Garvin announced in the last part of his Bites column in this week’s [7/30/15] Sacramento News & Review that there will be no future Bites. Reason? “The last couple of years have been tremendous fun. But Mrs. Bites can’t support my journalism habit forever. It’s time to get ‘a job.’”

I didn’t know that being the most-important columnist in Sacramento paid so very little. I also don’t see how SNR can do without him. He was the city’s tenacious and mighty investigative reporter in the guise of a pundit. He was our Woodward and Bernstein, rolled into one, who took on the leading political figure and disclosed his treachery.

The Bites mascot

Possibly, we aren’t going to know the real reason of what happened. Maybe matters are precisely what Garvin wrote – that it was his decision to leave – but we are left to wonder if the fear of lawsuits that rattle the publisher has a lot to do with Garvin’s disappearing act.

It’s a sad time to be a local-news consumer in Sacramento. Both the Sacramento News and Review and the Bee have become skittish as deer. The local big-shot politician can push them aside with a loud clap of his hands.

Welcome to Hard Times, too, for those of us who would want Sacramento to thrive as a place where people of all races and income levels can live together harmoniously. The Billionaire [Kings team owner] and Millionaire [KJ] will be getting ever richer at the expense of the city's citizens. There's no Superhero out there to deter them, anymore. So long, Cosmo.