LETTERS: County newspapers hould stop their whining

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN GENE EWERT – NEODESHA
As an expatriate Marionite, I have read the recent Marion County Record editorials about the neighboring Hillsboro Free Press with interest.


The editor there compares the editor of the HFP to the current trend in the country to skirt the law. I believe I see the actions of the MCR editor and that of the Peabody editor illustrative of the current trend to whine!


As the old saw says, “Me thinks he doth protest too much.”


If the Free Press is such a rag that it does nothing but line bird cages and wrap fish by the end of the week, what’s the problem?


However, in the issues of the HFP I’ve seen I’ve been impressed with the range of articles including current events, public interest and social events.


As an unofficial family historian, HFP articles have been passed on to me several times by miscellaneous relatives in the county, contrary to the perception of the editor of the Peabody paper.


I get the feeling that from the tone of the last two editorials, the Marion editor has seen some competition and it arrives free in his mail box once a week. That gets under his skin and I guess in some respects I understand that.


My personal opinion of legal notices is that they have kind of gone the way of the caboose so for me if they were printed in 2-point type it would not change how much I read them. I know we need them for legal purposes but to me they act as a signal to “turn the page now.”


Why there is a law that they have to be printed in a “subscription” newspaper is beyond me. You would think one that had a large distribution would make more sense, free or subscription.


Trust me, there are very few people that subscribe to a paper so they can read the latest developments in the legal notices. However, I do realize the value of them as a revenue source that helps provide a quality paper. This discussion is probably best left for another day.


The Marion County Record is a very good paper. I have subscribed to it for years and have no plans to change that tradition. In fact I brag about the Marion paper to many people. It is a prime example of what a small town newspaper should be. Its articles are timely and thorough. Many of them are securely placed in my family scrapbooks.


It seems a shame that two weeks of editorial copy in that paper has been spent on the current pastime of whining!



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