• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Sunday, April 2, 2023
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

Newspapers hold governments accountable

Landmark Staff by Landmark Staff
January 21, 2022
in Letters to the Editor
Newspapers
5
SHARES
135
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

EDITOR:

It saddened me to read the gleeful denigration of the Kansas City Star by Hearne Christopher in last week’s issue of The Landmark. Clearly this particular column is personal revenge vitriol from a disgruntled former employee with an ax to grind, backed up with a lengthy complaint from another unhappy individual. Ridiculing the challenges of publishing a newspaper these days is unbecoming to a columnist.

RelatedNews

City performs financial projections every year

Vote ‘no’ on Parkville’s tax proposals

Check your children’s Apple devices

These days it’s critical to recognize the struggles of evolving local newspapers as they fight to stay relevant to a diminishing reader population. There are so many competing virtual options for getting our news. The days of sitting down with a cup of coffee and an honest-to-goodness pulp newspaper may be numbered. We need to appreciate and support our local newspapers; not jeer at the financial hits they encounter to stay afloat.

With apologies to Ivan Foley, Mark Twain said, “I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God doesn’t make me one.” These are hard times for newspapers and the publishers who manage to get them in print every week.

While the Star has had to give up some real estate to survive a reduced, paying readership, its expansive journalism has sustained interest with huge feature stories that investigate and report on issues critical to KC: the reported abuses at a boys ranch, the homeless, payday lending scams, funding our public defenders offices, to name a few. Newspapers explore political and social issues and hold local governments accountable. “Journalism is always staring back at us in cold fact-black,” wrote Terri Gullemets. Consider The Landmark’s dogged pursuit of Parkville politics and of our county commission’s assignment of CARES (Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security) funds.

Our household is among those who resisted as long as we could the economic advantage of going digital in reading the Star. It’s not the same as sitting down with The Landmark or the Atkinson Graphic from my hometown. We’ve been subscribers to the Star since its heyday of two dailies with news about Kansas City and beyond. We currently support five local newspapers. Three may offer a digital option as well, but we get four of them in our mailbox every week.

If there is anything useful to be gained from the Hearne column it’s that we should applaud the heroic efforts and sacrifices of journalists and publishers who have to meet these economic challenges every week.

–LeeAnn Karbaumer

Platte City

Tags: covid-19parkvilleplatte cityplatte county
Landmark Staff

Landmark Staff

Related Posts

Hawley joins the mail delivery talk; a culinary classic

March craziness, wrong time/wrong place, post office audit

by Ivan Foley
March 31, 2023
0

Never underestimate the value of rotating your mattress occasionally. Got back pain and hitting the bottle of pain pills for some relief? You’ll be surprised at how often the simple act of rotating your mattress will help that pain disappear...

Road closed

Interurban Road will be closed for pipeline repair

by Landmark Digital
March 31, 2023
0

CLOSURE SCHEDULED APRIL 6-14 Interurban Road in Platte County will be closed for one week beginning Thursday, April 6 through Friday, April 14 for a gas pipeline repair. The work area will be located just north of the Sharp Station...

Time to get modern on this topic; and community policing

Senate leader not expecting sports betting bill to pass

by Landmark Digital
March 31, 2023
0

by Camden DohertyMissouri News Network A House bill legalizing sports betting, sponsored by Rep. Dan Houx, R-Warrensburg, was given final approval by the Missouri House of Representatives on Thursday, March 23 but still has some hurdles to clear in the...

Parkville Post Office

USPS to audit mail delivery in the Northland

by Ivan Foley
March 31, 2023
0

PARKVILLE, SURROUNDING ZIP CODES INCLUDED Maybe there’s hope for improved mail service in the Northland area of Kansas City. Responding to some pressure applied by mail service customers and by area congressmen, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced late...

Next Post
Park Hill School District logo

Lacking staff, Park Hill to close Thursday, Friday

Popular News

  • Anejo Modern Mexican

    Mexican restaurant set at Bar Louie’s old spot

    118 shares
    Share 47 Tweet 30
  • Audit: Wood’s accusation of health department unfounded

    15 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • Health board campaign drawing attention

    17 shares
    Share 7 Tweet 4
  • Two killed while car traveling in reverse

    26 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 7
  • USPS to audit mail delivery in the Northland

    8 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 2
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Online
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem
    • Login / Sign-up
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved