Good ol' boy Southern sheriffs. Gambling. Bribery. Cash wrapped in tin foil and stuffed in ceilings. ABSCAM-like video of an FBI sting operation.

The Bobby Medford trial has it all. So why isn't this national news?

As we've heard this week, the alleged public corruption wasn't just limited to the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. It allegedly reached into the Haywood County Sheriff's Department, the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department and possibly the Cleveland County court system.

So why isn't this story being covered by state and national media? It is, by far, one of the most significant and wide-ranging public corruption cases ever in Buncombe County, and probably all of Western North Carolina.

I suppose the Medford trial doesn't have a couple of key elements necessary in a juicy national story. There's no sex. And no murder. And while the government is building a case of cozy relations between video poker machine operators and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, there's no clear victim here. The victim - the damaged entity - is the public trust.

But that's hard to capture in a tidy two-minute television story or a 2,000 word print story.

I guess I've just answered myself. But I still think this story deserves greater coverage. The breadth and depth of this case is still sinking in. Maybe it will sink in with others, too.