I have never heard of a newspaper anywhere in the United States that has been so tormented by the truth as I have of the Sacramento Bee.

In late 1990 Raley's published and distributed their so-called account of Tom Raley's success story. Then on March 4, 1991, The Sacramento Bee did an article about Raley’s, their success and the man who they had been told and believed had created their success, CEO Chuck Collings. That was the one-two punch that made us come out fighting.

What Raley's and the Sacramento Bee wrote were fighting words and we began fighting for the truth. In Raley's history book and the Bee article, Collings was basking in his self proclaimed glory that he was the savior of the company. In a sense he was because he was the man who ultimately hired our father Charles Nordby but then he proceeded to cheat him out of everything he was promised.

When we read the article in the Bee we questioned every word they had written. We knew according to our father, it was Collings who was leading Tom Raley’s company into bankruptcy. When our father started implementing his program at Raley's, nearly everything he saw wrong at Raley's led to mismanagement and the accounting department of which Collings should have been aware of since he was head of Raley's accounting department for many years before taking the position of President. 

When we first discovered the errors in what The Bee was reporting, we knew they were reporting out of ignorance because the truth had been concealed from them as well. It is quite possible that The Bee was given a copy of Raley's history book and was basing their March 4th article and the information in it from a source that was not reliable.

When we first called the The Sacramento Bee, we called in meekness in hopes of getting this error corrected, and we talked to a reporter named Mike Castro. He heard our rendition of the Raley's success story and without ever doubting it, the only thing he could say to us was “Do you think Raley’s wants the public to know about this?”  I replied back "why not, it is the truth.” We never heard back from Mike Castro.

We later approached Business Editor Jack Sirard about this error in The Bee’s reporting of Raley’s success. We shared the same story with him and his only response to us was on a sheet from a Sacramento Bee memo pad that stated  “We have no interest in pursuing this story at this time,” signed Jack Sirard. We still have that memo and every little piece of evidence and information that we found along the way.

We realized that The Bee had already published fifteen years of a fairy tale success story of Tom Raley and it is our opinion that they couldn’t retract many years of misinformation that they had been sharing with their readers. Along with the enormous advertising budget that Raley’s was sending The Bee’s way, The Bee could not afford to lose this big advertiser in their paper.

Since The Bee had made the decision not to "pursue"  this story, we decided to approach the Sacramento Union newspaper. They had run an article in October 1973 about our father and what he was doing for a local chain of stores(Raley’s). Ironically, the article was titled “The Great American Rip-Off” . How appropriate to have an article written 36 years ago with a prophetic title that has become “The Great American Rip-Off”.   When we shared our fathers story with the Union's Editor, Joseph Farah, this is what he said to us:

            “Guys, I have no reason not to believe your dads story, but if I print his story Raley’s will close my doors”.

That blew us away. We thought that newspapers were suppose to print the truth. We just didn’t know that if it is about one of their largest advertisers in the area it wasn’t going to happen. Whenever we would see Channel 3’s advertisement for it's news broadcast that said “This portion of the news, is brought to you by Raley’s”, it made us shake our heads because we also knew that the news was also being hushed by Raley’s.

In fact, since 1991 and the breaking of this story, not one local news reporting company has been able to touch this story because of the financial impact it would have on them. The influence of a billion dollars is unbelievable. Remember, a billion is a thousand million. How many news reporting companies could one buy or hush with a thousand million? We found out, possibly every one of them. Sad but true that money talks but money also hushes.

We did get one enquiry from a self proclaimed writer of truth. She thought that "truth matters", until she realized who and what she was up against. Her email is worth repeating and tells it like it is:

     “Hello Mr. Nordby,
 No, I have never heard this story - what a horrid story it is. However, very sadly, I am not surprised. There are people who will do absolutely anything to gain wealth, and/or hang on to wealth (power). Crushing another person seems to be nothing but collateral damage for them.
I am interested in your story. My columns are not just rhetoric - I write what I believe. As you have already discovered, the threat of Raley's financial resources is huge. While I cannot and will not jeopardize (her company), I am interested in finding the proper venue for your story.
That could take some time and research. It is a compelling story but as I previously said, most people in Sacramento have too much to lose given the size, scope and far-reaching tentacles of the Raley's family. I still think it needs to be a book and not done by a newspaper - a newspaper would and/or could lose all of their advertisers. A newspaper …..could be shut down in one day by Raley's.”
Katy G

After my father wrote his book "Raley's Exposed", he wanted to advertise his book for sale in the Sacramento Bee. He had a block ad of about 3"x 4" created to place in The Bee. He submitted it to the Bee and their response to him was "this ad is inappropiate for the Bee". The Bee had no difficulties placing ads for strip joints with almost naked people in them, but Charles Nordby's ad was innapropiate? The one thing The Bee had no problem publishing in their paper about Charles Nordby was his funeral notice and obituary. In fact, when you read it, they are almost gloating in it and probably thinking to themselves that his story is dead too! But it didn't die, and in fact it has become even bigger with new information that has surfaced.

The Sacramento Bee has been offered the $100,000 reward since its inception. They know this story is true. They can't refute it and neither can they afford to report. It shatters the credibility of their own reporting of Tom Raley's success story. We have noticed that there is very little reported about the Teel's and Raley's anymore. 

Earlier this year my brother Frank and myself discovered that the SacBee was censoring our comments that we posted on their website. Keep in mind that we have been a thorn in the Sacramento's Bee side for over 18 years. We realized that whenever Frank would post a comment I could not see it but Frank could. Whenever I would post a comment I could see it but Frank couldn't. We were baffled until we came to the conclusion that the Bee is able to censor, silence and hush anyone who writes anything contradictory to the Bee's editorial stance.

I emailed Coleen Belcher at SacPress to set up a time when Frank and I could stop by and talk to her about something. She agreed, so we went by the SacPress office with a laptop in hand. We asked Coleen to turn on her computer and go to SacBee's website. We showed her our comments on our laptop but she was unable to see the comments on hers. We all figured that somehow the Sacramento Bee is able to censor, silence and hush our voice on their website. They might be doing it to others as well. Unless you have a reason to question it, you would never discover this blatant form of censorship with a dose of deception to give a person the  appearance that everything in the Sacramento Bee is fair reporting as well as the fair opinion and voices of its readers.

Someday something could happen that will force this story to the forefront of news. How will the Sacramento Bee handle Charles Nordby's story then?

Sources: News logos from www internet images, Charles Nordby's obituary compliments of the Bee, Sacramento Union article October 24, 1973.