The New York Times calling Fort Pierce 'a scruffy outpost' is typical big-city snobbery

It was bound to happen. In hindsight, I'm sorry I didn't start an office pool placing bets on the date it would.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first example of big-city media dumping on Fort Pierce in the run-up to former President Donald Trump's trial on charges of mishandling classified documents.

In a July 21 article profiling Aileen Cannon, the federal district court judge presiding over the case, The New York Times dismissed Fort Pierce, where the trial is scheduled to be held, as an unlikely center for serious jurisprudence.

"She (Cannon) and her husband lived in Vero Beach, a short commute to the mausoleum-like courthouse in Fort Pierce that had recently been vacated by Judge Robin L. Rosenberg," Times reporter Robert Draper wrote. "It was a somewhat scruffy outpost that other potential nominees were reluctant to relocate to."

I knew this was coming. You knew this was coming. The colorful figurines on display outside Ndiaga Niang's  African Art, Antiques and Gifts shop in Kraaz Square knew it was coming.

Still, it's a bit jarring to see an up-and-coming community dismissed in such an offhand fashion. It reminds me of the scene in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Princess Leia disparages her rival/lover Han Solo as a “stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder.”

To which Solo responds with the epic comeback line: "Who's scruffy looking?"

Which is basically the same question I would put to Draper and the residents of the town where his newspaper is based.

According to Oxford's English Dictionary, the word "scruffy" means "shabby and untidy or dirty."

I don't know if Draper spent any time in downtown Fort Pierce or if he traveled to and from the "mausoleum-like courthouse" for the first preliminary hearing with his eyes closed. But after spending some time in New York City, I don't see how anyone who lives there could describe Fort Pierce in that manner with a straight face.

Let's talk about that mausoleum-like courthouse for a minute. The Alto Lee Adams, Sr. U.S. Courthouse in Fort Pierce sits a couple of blocks away from TCPalm's Fort Pierce office. There's a good view of the top of it from my editor's office window.

I've had plenty of opportunities to study it while I should have been paying closer attention to what my editor was telling me. It looks like ... a government building. No more, no less. It doesn't look rundown or shabby or scruffy, at least not to my unsophisticated eyes.

If it had been built as an architectural marvel, the cost probably would have reflected that. And we all know how people on the Treasure Coast (and maybe even in supposedly enlightened places like New York City) feel about wasteful government spending.

I don't want to disparage a fellow journalistic colleague (I bet that comparison will sting Draper's ego) for making a poor word choice or two. I've done it many times myself. Maybe even within the last few paragraphs.

It does bother me his remarks may be shorthand for a popular stereotype big-city folks have of small towns, particularly those located in the South: To wit, we're all unschooled hayseeds who aren't even smart enough to appreciate the economic, recreational and cultural amenities available wherever they live.

It's going to get worse, too. As Trump's May trial date approaches, more reporters from big-city media outlets will converge on Fort Pierce, doing stories filled with "local color" about our strange ways. Best case, the Sunrise City will be branded as a "quaint fishing village" ― which is a label I don't think can be fairly applied to a city with either a Red Lobster or a Long John Silver's. (Fort Pierce has both.)

Here's my wish for out-of-town media trying to sum up our community: Focus on quality, not quantity.

No, Fort Pierce doesn't have as many playhouses as Broadway. But the one we've got, the century-old Sunrise Theatre, is packed full of history and charm.

Yes, New York and other bigger towns have more museums. That doesn't mean the Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks Trail, the A.E. Backus Museum & Gallery, the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, the Smithsonian Marine Station and the Manatee Observation and Education Center are chopped liver. (And no, that's not an all-inclusive list of Fort Pierce museums. I'm just throwing out a few examples.)

We've got too many good restaurants to even begin to list, most of which you can afford to visit without taking out a second mortgage.

From most parts of New York, getting to a decent swimming beach is an ordeal that involves fighting traffic and crowds. In Fort Pierce, you can be in or on the water quicker than people living in a lot of places can get to the nearest convenience store.

Does Fort Pierce have pockets of crime and poverty? Yes, we do. However, the last time I was in Manhattan, a man offered me prostitutes and drugs while I was sitting on the front stoop of the posh hotel where my wife and I were staying. (My wife happened to be sitting next to me at the time.)

My final point ― a closing argument, if you will ― is actually a question: If Fort Pierce and other small Florida communities are so bad, then why are so many New Yorkers moving here? Rather than treating them as an invasive species, we welcome them, along with their complaints about substandard pizza and delis, with open arms.

We're also seeing more people from Miami and other more heavily populated communities to our south moving to this remote "outpost" to take advantage of our reduced traffic, lower cost of living and overall better quality of life.

If Draper comes back here for the trial, he had better watch out, lest he fall into the same trap that snared Michael J. Fox's character in the movie, "Doc Hollywood." If he spends enough time here, he may never want to leave.

This column reflects the opinion of Blake Fontenay. Contact him via email at bfontenay@gannett.com or at 772-232-5424.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: New York Times should look inward before calling Fort Pierce scruffy