We passed on inauguration coverage in favor of local news

One News Journal reader asked me why we did not include coverage of President Barack Obama’s inauguration in last week’s edition of the newspaper.

I think an explanation to all of our readers is in order, but first I want to dispel a few myths.

There is no denying that this newspaper was founded on conservative principals and remains that way to this day, from its ownership on down. It is called The Whitley Republican after all. We are proud of that heritage and would never shy away from it. These values simply reflect those of the people we serve.

But no one walked into my office forbidding any coverage of Mr. Obama’s inauguration to appear in our pages. There was no conspiracy to ignore the election of a Democratic President, and there was NEVER any intention to slight Barack Obama in any way because he is black.

Quite the contrary, Publisher Don Estep even considered picking up on coverage one weekly newspaper in western Kentucky intended to provide. We don’t belong to wire services or corporate networks that do our work for us and that provide us with news to fill our pages every week. All of our news is generated locally by local reporters. In the final assessment, we felt the cost of inauguration coverage would not really benefit our readers.

In modern times, this consideration was actually a first for us, as far as anyone here can remember. I came to the News Journal just after the inauguration of Bill Clinton for his second term and have worked here since. Twice this country elected a Republican since that time. Coverage of those events in this newspaper was never seriously contemplated, so I feel we have a solid track record of bias-free reporting in that regard.

Our decision this time quite simply boiled down to this – we are a local newspaper. We are a community newspaper. We cover local stories about local events and local people and that’s all we do.
At the News Journal, we realized that if you want information and coverage on huge national stories, like the inauguration of our 44th President, you can get it in about a million other places, done a lot better than we could ever do it.

But we are one of the few places you can get information about what is happening in Corbin, Williamsburg and Whitley County. At this, we are the best.

So we decided last Wednesday to stick to our area of specialty. There may be an extremely small niche of our readers that expected presidential inauguration coverage in last week’s News Journal. If you were disappointed, I truly apologize. We did not mean to let you down.

We get many weekly newspapers from around Kentucky in our office every week. After going through the pile, I found none with coverage of the inauguration. This proves we are not lone wolves making off-the-wall decisions. Like us, these newspapers are dedicated to providing their communities local news.
I personally spent much of the day last Thursday filling newspaper racks that had sold through copies of Wednesday’s edition. This happens often, but it was more pronounced last week than usual. I think that is because our readers have a healthy thirst for local news. Our competitor decided to provide almost nothing but inauguration coverage in their edition the same day. That is fine. They did a good job. And there is nothing wrong with variety.

We simply provided an alternative to that, and local newspaper readers responded very favorably. I think the strong sales vindicate our decision.

The News Journal has a strong identity as a newspaper that is fiercely loyal to the idea that local news is our No. 1 priority. It has served us well for over 100 years. We intend to stay true to those values.