It doesn’t reflect favorably on our community.
I’m speaking of the most recent articles that seem to get the front page headlines of our local newspaper.
Let’s take an example.
Wednesday the headlines read “Two Men plead guilty to selling firearms to felons.
And Sunday it was front page headline story of how an apparent paraplegic threw his legs after a trooper stopped the car in which he was riding.
Admittedly the first item was serious, but the second was a bit on the humorous side.
Having been in the news business for far too many years, a number of them at the local newspaper, I fail to see the need for highlighting crime as our biggest news.
The Wednesday paper carried a side front page story about how the City Council had approved the new gated subdivision. Now that is news to a community looking forward to positive growth.
I realize that the most recent trend of the local newspaper is to go to a morning newspaper, which many prefer, and also to highlight mostly local news and local events.
That change is good, but not the habit of always spotlighting the faults of the community.
The fact is that the community is already split with the city, suburb problem, and that alone is really a drawback to enticing new industries to local here.
I applauded the recent roundtables of some of the community leaders, I also commend Councilman Bud Hart for his wishes to have more meetings with the County Commissioners. We have a community that is half governed by the city and the other half by the Commissioners. This, in itself, should require at least meetings of the two bodies on a regular basis…perhaps at least every quarter.
One thing is certain…..if we are to have controlled growth…and not just grow like topsy…..we’d better bet our own house in order, come to agreement on how, where and what we want growth to do.
When I was in the newspaper business there was one guiding light under the ownership of Frank Jenkins….and that was….what was the best for the community. That was the guiding light of our newspaper then.,,.,,and it should be so today.
We certainly have more to highlight in this community than just the seamier side of life. What used to be carried inside the paper in a capsulized form is now headlined on the front page and that doesn’t do our community and its reputation any good.
This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.