… you write a story about a business owner on a town council getting the council to support his industry, then using that success to try to get the state to underwrite the town’s decision to support his industry, and not have one word about the obvious and rather blatant ethical problems and cronyism if the industry is also “progressive.”

Today in The News & Observer there is this:

Apex pursues solar grants
Town council wants N.C. legislature to help pay for renewable energy

Building on a statewide swell in support of solar energy, the town of Apex is asking the General Assembly to create state-funded grants for local governments that want to install solar panels.

Council member Bill Jensen, who owns a small solar company but is mostly retired, introduced the idea in February. He has since been emailing mayors and other leaders around Wake County to drum up support and said recently he might soon start appealing directly to lobbyists and lawmakers. …

The rest of the article reads like a press release for green energy. State grants and tax credits make solar’s costs suddenly affordable … solar is green and healthy … there’s a conservative pro-solar group now doncha know … hey, Cary’s doing it … North Carolina has a lot of solar and there’s one study that says it drives the whole economy or something.

Not one single word, not even from a designated “bad guy,” voices concern about conflict of interest here. There’s not one peep about cronyism and about government serving the interests of business instead of citizens.

This is a love story, not a news story. All the dramatic focus is on whether those two crazy kids can set aside their differences and come together since Everyone Knows They Are Made For Each Other.

Pick any other industry — tobacco, hog farms, fracking, anything — in a similar situation that would get this Hallmark Channel treatment.