On this occasion of National Journalism Week, let me congratulate The Brunswick News on being one of less than one hundred family owned newspapers surviving in the USA today. It will be a sad day when I hear that the Leavy family has given up the good fight and syndicated. It will also be the end of my subscription.
There is a big difference between printed news and the sound byte theatrics of TV news. The stuff put out on social media doesn’t meet any standard of professional journalism. There is a more subtle difference between syndicated newspapers and the privately owned ones. It is the same difference as between free enterprise and socialism. Or the common genus of collective man and the collective genus of common man. Most of all, the opinions of a trusted family name can not be purchased as readily as those of a paid CEO.
I know it must hurt when the good professional journalists of your paper find themselves poorly painted with the same broad brush as many of the agenda driven media. I can only hope that you all hang in there and continue to keep it balanced, despite your personal beliefs.
If you need proof of the validity of my concerns, I invite any reader of this paper to grade the objectivity of its local news stories with those submitted by the wire services. And this is after they have been culled by a local editor.
Hang in there.
Bob Hilton
Brunswick
