Our Opinion
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Greg S. Williams - July 2, 2012
When I began developing Barnesville Dispatch seven years ago, local daily news couldn�t be had in this region at any price. Online advertising was nonexistent and most Internet connections were still made by dial-up service�used primarily to share witty emails and maybe for online banking services.
But we had a larger goal in mind. That was to produce the region�s first and only honest-to-goodness daily news source and to use the latest in modern technology�in order to accomplish it � the Internet.
In the typical fashion of ideal journalism, we wanted to distribute news and documentary research on an array of topics that would include government, business, and certain cultural aspects of our society � all to a broad audience.
And we like to think that since then, we�ve at least come close to our original goals. With the passage of time we also believe that continued hard work will eventually help us to realize all of them.
With so much passion in our work, you can imagine then our disappointment to learn that an area �reporter� has referred to our news style here as �Yellow Journalism�.
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Rest assured that as news leaders, we certainly expect criticism but won�t stand for the childish behavior of renegade reporters or the publishers who feed them!
For the record, according to Wikipedia.com, �Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.�
Maybe it�s time they did a little soul-searching.
We�re proud of our accomplishments here at Barnesville Dispatch.com as we continue to stand head and shoulders above our closest competition when it comes to accurate, honest, and innovative reporting.
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Thank you for your continued support!
