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NSBNews.net video by Henry Frederick / Our exclusive video shows Oak Hill Mayor Mary Lee Cook's statement at Monday's City Commission meeting in which she denies any connection to 10 marijuana plants confiscated by Sheriff's deputies with the East Volusia Narcotics Task Force last month. The mayor insisted the pot plants were purposely placed there in an attempt to frame her. The Volusia County Sheriff's Office did not charge Cook, following a tip last month that led deputies to the 10 pot plants. NSBNews.net wrote the story live during the 90-minute meeting at Oak Hill City Hall. On Wednesday, Google News had more than 180 stories posted on its pages online. The graphic above, and shown below in larger detail, highlights the time cycle of story postings, including the breaking story by NSBNews.net, two days ahead of everyone else, including the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the Orlando Sentinel and the Orlando-based TV news stations.
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OAK HILL -- From the Washington Post to the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, and even a newspaper in England, news of the marijuana controversy that had 84-year-old Oak Hill Mayor Mary Lee Cook's insisting that someone tried to frame her by putting pot plants on her property, spread like wildfire Wednesday. But that was two days after NSBNews.net broke the story.
So what caused the national media frenzy? The Casey Anthony murder trial is old news. The NFL strike is over. President Obama and Congressional Republicans are still bogged down in the national deficit.
With a slow news day, an 84-year-old mayor having to stave off accusations that she may be a pothead becomes a sexy story.
Like NSBNews.net, the News-Journal had a reporter at the meeting, but there was no story in the Tuesday newspaper. On Wednesday, a story appeared on the local section front and it was picked up by the Associated Press out of Miami. NSBNews.net is not a member of the AP, though it does have an AP video feeder.
NSBNews.net predicted Tuesday that once print media followed NSBNews.net, the TV stations would jump in on the action.
WESH Channel 2, for example, tried to be cutesy with the story by comparing the mayor's former gardening days to her shock that marijuana plants would be growing in her yard.
But in their haste to be clever, every media outlet with the exception of NSBNews.net failed to make the connection as to why the marijuana story is important here in Oak Hill. NSBNews.net has stood alone in covering this story for eight months.
The mayor has been in a political feud with embattled Police Chief Diane Young for more than a year over alleged corruption and incompetence in the police department. Young was promoted to the top cop post on a 3-2 vote despite her admission to snorting cocaine more than a hundred times and smoking pot during the mid 1980s.
Even the News-Journal failed to make that connection (besides spelling Commissioner Linda Hyatt's name wrong).
Here is the link to our breaking story from Monday night: http://nsbnews.net/content/406786-mayor-mary-lee-cook-denies-ownership-pot-plants-found-her-land-im-tired
Editor's Note: Below is a larger graphic on the Google news directory listings for the Oak Hill pot story that NSBNews.net snapprd Wednesday night.
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Below is an updated headline listing sample from Google at 6:31 a.m. (Thursday). Notice NSBNews.net is a full two days ahead of all the big boys, from the Huffington Post to CBS News to the Daily Mail in Great Britain.
NSBNews.net, also known as VolusiaNews.net, provides Volusia County 24 / 7 Internet newspaper coverage, 100% free with breaking news, news of record and investigative reports from New Smyrna Beach, FL, for a 21st-century digital world.