We are celebrating the 34th anniversary of Corbin! This Week

This week marks the 34th anniversary of the publication of Corbin! This Week. The first paper rolled off the presses on Aug. 12, 1987.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

I was 48 years old and we were starting a sister edition of the Whitley Republican aimed at a Corbin readership. It was a risky move in that the Corbin Daily Tribune had big numbers in Corbin but the Whitley Republican had the Williamsburg numbers.

A weekly newspaper had never succeeded in Corbin against the daily. However, we knew that if we were to succeed we would need a larger circulation in the Corbin area. In 1992 we merged the Whitley Republican and Corbin! This Week into one edition called the News Journal.

Now 34 years later the News Journal is the only newspaper located in Whitley County. And change is what I am writing about this week. I would like to turn back the clock to 1987. Locally things have improved, but the world was a much better place then. For one thing we didn’t have Covid-19 to deal with.

But that is not the only thing that has gone wrong in the past 34 years. We have succeeded in ignoring the warning signs about climate change. Al Gore was making movies and scientists were telling us if we didn’t change things our planet would be in trouble. Well guess what, they were right.

Politics today has taken a step into the gutter in the past 34 years. Not that it was crystal clean back then, but today it is mostly all about party and less about the welfare of our country.

You can look at many other changes and say look how we have progressed. For instance, look at “Al Gore’s” Internet. Yes, let’s look at the Internet.

I’m not so sure that this is progress when a foreign country can shut down businesses and threaten our welfare. And personally, I look at what it has done to the print media. Print is just hanging on because of the Internet. Instead of getting factual reporting from professional journalists, today many rely on myths and unreliable sources for their news from the Internet. Not only that, the Internet has divided America more than any other thing.

Church attendance in the United States is a mere fraction to what it was in 1987. Why? There are many theories as to why this has happened. My personal opinion is that in many churches it has become a place for entertainment rather than worship.

But back to the Internet and its replacement of the ad revenue from newspapers. Other than Amazon and other catalogue style Internet advertising, I will never be convinced that placing a spot ad on the Internet is worth anything. For one thing that little mouse can run by that ad so quickly you hardly notice it is there, unlike a newspaper ad that remains there while you read the news on the page.

I was reminded this week to count my blessings when a friend was discussing my health issues. He reminded me about the person complaining about having no shoes when the person next to him had no feet. No matter what the situation, you can always find one worse than yours.

Even though I see things nationally worse today than 34 years ago, like a bouncing ball when it goes down, it will bounce back up. In every instance I mentioned people are working to overcome mistakes of the past.

On this anniversary of Corbin! This Week we have plenty of blessings. Our newspaper still has a very strong readership and community support. And this is NIBROC week, a time to enjoy the 69th annual festival.