Afflicting the Comfortable: Journalism and Politics in West Virginia

By Thomas Stafford and Thomas F. Stafford

While investigating the Invest Right scandal, Thomas Stafford, a former journalist for the Charleston Gazette, found himself in a very precarious position. As a reporter he felt obligated to tell the whole truth, and he believed in the need to serve the public and those West Virginians who were being abused by a political machine. In Afflicting the Comfortable, Stafford relates such tales of the responsibility of journalism and politics in coordination with scandals that have unsettled the Mountain State over the past few decades.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933202041
• ISBN13: 9781933202044
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: West Virginia University Press
• Length: 331 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Finally, an incisive look at West Virginia politics

This well-written and well-documented 2005 volume is everything that last year's "West Virginia Tough Boys" by Davis wasn't -- a hard look at West Virginia politics by a reporter who followed the game for years and conveys to the average reader how political life has been lived for decades in a corrupt state. Where Davis focused on political shenanigans by powerful sheriffs and courthouse rings in southern West Virginia's coal counties, Stafford takes a broader, more holistic view, following, in chronological order, the state administrations of various governors from the 1930s through the 1990s. Stafford's work is a lot easier to follow, doesn't rely so much on long, rambling passages from oral histories, and brings the practiced eye of a veteran statehouse political reporter to his subject. It's a valuable addition to the literature, however neither Davis nor Stafford really manages to satisfactorily answer the fundamental question: why has political corruption and malfeasance been permitted to persist for so long in America's poorest, neediest state?