The cross-over episode: The Independent interviews Cleveland County News
- Chuck Thompson
- Sep 25
- 6 min read
Journalism's new era of online news faces off across the lunch table at Pleasant Mart
Editor's note: This interview (obviously) didn't actually happen at Pleasant Mart, since it doesn't actually exist, but to be from Cleveland County is to understand the joke, and it was a great way to get your attention to read this special feature.
Almost everyone in Cleveland County has at least heard of Cleveland County News, a Facebook news and entertainment page run by Brandon Bridges that posts a mix of real news with satire, levity, some clap-back, and just some down-home information on overlooked things happening in the county that many have found informative.
Bridges said the idea for the site started several years ago when a little over-looked, but high used cut-through road was closed. The road, located near where the current new County Home Road is located, between the Fairfield Inn and the State Employees Credit Union in Shelby, right off E. Dixon Blvd was shut down and caused a stir with local residents.
“They closed that road for no reason,” said Bridges. “It was strange because they closed the road and said in council meetings it wouldn’t affect traffic, but it did. From there I just started following overlooked events happening around the area, and big things too, just to give the people here some news they might not get from the local established media.”
Bridges said as local news trickled away and was replaced by regional, state and national news, someone had to try to fill the void.
“A lot of local news over the past several years has just been regurgitated news from Asheville, Gastonia, Charlotte, and further out, and I wanted to inform people about what was actually going on here in Cleveland County. 'Who covers Shelby? Who is covering Cleveland County?' was what I was hearing,” explained Bridges. That’s how the idea of Cleveland County News was born.
He started the Cleveland County News Facebook page, and it went from there.
Bridges said it took a while to fine-tune the page, learning what peaked people’s interest and what didn’t.
“As the years have gone on, I found out what people wanted to know. I learned from making mistakes and what hits and resonates and what doesn’t. People really responded to what I was doing, and Cleveland County News garnered a big following because people were starving tor more local news centered in one place.”
Bridges said his previous employment was closer to home and allowed him to get out more to write about things happening in the county, but now, he travels often and it has limited his ability to freely cover things as he once did. But he credits his followers with giving him tips about news happening and follower submissions have really helped now that his time to cover news is limited due to his workload.
“Followers will send me info, saying ‘hey this is happening’ or ‘you might want to look into this’ and it’s really helped,” added Bridges. “I’m thankful I still have that following.”
Bridges said a recent post about a local dealership that allegedly did not treat a customer as was expected, has since corrected the issue, thanks to Cleveland County News and their followers that submitted information.
“Am I going to take the credit and say it was all me? No, not at all,” noted Bridges. “But those things make it all worth it because they make a difference.”
Bridges said that’s when you know what you’re doing is worth it, when you can help make a difference and hold those accountable for promises kept, or misunderstanding cleared up.
He said people really like reading about righting wrongs, new businesses opening, and being informed on changes across the county.
“People love to share their opinion on something, their experiences, both negative and positive. They want to know what is going on, events and other happenings,” he said. “Nobody has been covering some of these things and I’m glad I have been able to do so, because people need to know they are being heard and their voice matters.”
Bridges also touched on the levity of the page, the more humorous side of the page, not to be taken seriously.
“A lot of stuff I do is ‘tongue-and-cheek’ and that’s fun and people enjoy it,” Bridges noted.
What might be perceived as light-hearted has some definite truth to it, such as his constant – what some might call razzing – Dollar General store updates, as Bridges explained, “Some may think I’m a little too hard on the Dollar General, but they enjoy the updates. Why are they still not open? What’s really going on there? Why do people not want to work there?”
Cleveland County News / Brandon Bridges is known to be controversial, sometimes inserting opinions into his news articles and other times poking fun at certain events.
Rumors of rats being in a particular store gave him the idea of posting about ‘Stuart Little’s’ cousin being found living in the back of the store.
Half the controversy around Cleveland County News is the debate of whether it is considered more serious news or for entertainment purposes only.
“I don’t stick to one genre,” Bridges said. I’m not hard-lined all the time and I’m not funny all the time. It depends on the situation, but I’d like to think that people understand and know the difference between a satire post and a real news post.”
He said he feels his mix of entertainment posts and real news posts has possibly hurt his credibility, because Bridges just posts what he wants when he wants, but he sincerely hopes most people know the difference between what is considered entertainment, and what is real news on the Facebook page.
But once in a blue moon, a post causes some confusion and controversy that is only meant to be satirical but is mistaken as real news. Once such (infamous) incident, in a now deleted post, involved the old Sagebrush building. The building which had been through three different restaurants, he published an obvious fake post, stating the empty building was going to be turned into the ‘World’s Largest Captain’s D’s’ and the post was shared as the truth.
“People believed it!” he exclaimed, still in disbelief. “It was shared multiple times with people commenting and thinking this was true that the empty restaurant building was actually going to be the world’s largest Captain D’s, so I had to delete it. I didn’t have a choice, it was the only way to control it and by that point it was already out of hand. It had to be deleted, unfortunately.”
But probably the most viral post on Cleveland County News was the suspected Chinese spy weather balloon floated across the United States in early 2023. Bridges said he made a modification of a photo of the spy balloon. He wrote “Billy Bob loves Charlene” on the image; taken from the Joe Diffie song ‘John Deer Green.’
“I just had this idea and opened the image in the paint app and just threw it up there,” explained Bridges. “I also posted ridiculous updates, stating the pilot stopped in Lawndale to take a smoke break. Me and some buddies were just having fun thinking of these different fake updates, and then that photo just blew up across social media.”
Soon, different social media sites started stealing the image, not giving him credit, just sharing it as if it were their idea. Bridges said they contacted a few pages that had used the image with “Billy Bob loves Charlene” but to no response.
After the photo infringement issue, Bridges said he had to tag all his photos with a watermark to prevent it from happening again. Once of the headaches of social media – and journalism – that happens in the digital age.
While posts like Stuart Little’s cousin found D.O.A. in a store, Billy Bob loves Charlene written in John Deer green on the side of the Chinese spy balloon, and the world’s largest Captain D’s have made followers laugh, mad, and misunderstood the message, other posts like the vehicle sold at a local dealership actually garnered enough attention to change things.
Cleveland County News was the first site to break the news that LongHorn was coming to Shelby, and covered Hang Time Golf.
Complicated, entertaining, and serious, Cleveland County News has – if nothing else – entertained, angered, enlightened and informed roughly 20,000 followers for several years now, and Bridges hopes he can continue to do so for many more years. “I’m happy with what Cleveland County News has done; I’m happy with what I’ve done and glad to have a voice. I’d like to think that I had a little something to do with getting that road back open with my reporting on the matter. I can’t complain; people enjoy reading Cleveland County News and I do use the page as a soap box sometimes, but a lot of stuff I post – I think as just one person – I think that everything I run has my opinion and yet I feel like I’ve helped make a difference.”
You can find Cleveland County News on Facebook. Just remember to know what to take seriously and what to enjoy as entertainment.
Follow The Shelby Independent on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. To contact Chuck about a story idea, send an email or visit the contact page.
Chuck Thompson is a reporter for The Shelby Independent.
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