Former President Bill Clinton once said "Never pick a fight with someone the buys ink by the barrel.” Well I’m ignoring the advice and picking a fight with the publisher of the Parkesburg Post Ledger!
A friendly fight, but none the less a fight.
Why am I doing this? I’m tired of the shoddy coverage the Parkesburg Post Ledger (PPL) gives Parkesburg, its people and our government. Every week they either don’t get it or get it wrong. Their many short comings include:
- Misquotes – Ok, who hasn’t been misquoted by the PPL? You haven't lived in Parkesburg until you've been misquoted or misrepresented on the pages of the PPL.
- Missed Events – The listed of missed events is endless. For example in May when Presbyterian Homes and HDC, announced they had acquired the 3 acre lot across 1st Avenue from the Fire Company and planed to build an 80 unit senior condo, in effect making a $10 million dollar investment in our town's revitalization, the PPL gave ZERO (as in nothing, nada, zippo) coverage to the event. I could go on and on and on. The PPL just isn't there when it really matters to Parkesburg.
- Bad Headlines – Again the list is endless. For instance last week Alan Wolfe was identified as Parkesburg’s Mayor on the front page of the PPL. Now I like Alan Wolfe and appreciate the contribution he has made to our town, but he hasn’t been Parkesburg’s Mayor for 6 years. Is it too much to ask that our town’s paper identify him correctly as the “Former" Mayor?
- Misplaced Priorities – The editorial leadership is out of touch with our town’s priorities. Over lunch last year with with PPL’s editor Fran Maye, it was clear to all that Fran was totally and completely unaware of the many initiatives under way to breath new life into our residential and commercial neighborhoods.
- Geographical Indifference – The PPL is published out of Quarryville, 20 miles to the west of Parkesburg and not even in the same
If there’s one thing everyone agrees on here in Parkesburg is we deserve better when it comes to a newspaper. Parkesburg Today is my attempt to do better. Once a week I’ll update Parkesburg Today to include:
- Council Happenings – As Bev Ely is fond of saying, you can’t make a difference unless you show up at council meeting. Bev is right, 90% of making a difference is showing up. But we know you can’t make every meeting so I’ll use these pages to keep you up to date.
- Community Happenings – A calendar of community events you may be interested in attending and or participating in. If you have an event that you would like included on our calendar, send me an email at kknickerbocker@gmail.com with the details. I’ll see that it gets posted within a day or two.
- Polls – Tell me what important to you by voting in our weekly polls dealing with local, regional and national issues.
- Whatever … - "Whatever..." leaves room for future additions. Let me know if you have something you would like to see on this page. I will make sure every idea is carefully considered and voted on by our committee of 1(me!) and if the committee likes it we’ll find a way to get it posted.
That’s it for now. Make sure you vote in this week’s poll on Parkesburg's priorities and check back next week when I again shun Former President Clinton's advice and take on Fran Maye, the local guy who buys ink by the tanker load!
Now its your turn. Share your thoughts with me. Click on "Comments" below and fire (type) away.
5 comments:
Great idea. Glad to get some additional information out for the town.
I ran a search to find out details on why the Parkesburg Post has closed and found this site. I found the paper to be poorly done and often inaccurate, but then again it's not like journalism has much credibility anyway. I stopped reading years ago when I got sick of the paper gifting the village idiot with "Tav's Take".
I hardly ever agreed with Tav's views. But I respected the Post Ledger for publishing his perspective.
But then again we're all "village idiots" aren't we.
I have lived in in the devlopment behind Dutch-Way since it was built in the early/mid 80s. I relate all to well to what it is that is being said here about the Parkesburg Postt/ Christiana Ledger, which by the way were established in the late 1800's and are really 2 seperate papers that merged into 1, (for those who didn't know that). I have spent countless hours, days, weeks, months and years fighting tooth and nail to get some sort of a media outlet for our community. Lucky for us, I'm making it happen. My name is Christian McLaughlin. And I encourage you to contact me, as your commuunity awaits an outlet of information that is based here and is operated by locals. I tell you now, I have accomplished such an entity. I NEEEEED Your Help Now!! We are a non-Profit, Non-Commercial Radio Station Based In Gap. We're licensed to cover the vast majority of LanChester, Including Parkesburg. I alone can not do it. I really need your help. And any other insiders in all the surrounding area too! This is it. Do you want the unrealiable corporate media telling you and future generations only the things they feel make "good business sense..."cents"", or are you going to stop telling the world what is wrong and proactivly do something. I don't care if you tell us it's clear and 65'F in town or a dog ran away in the Starasburg Road/ Swan Road area. ANYTHING IS BENEFICIAL at this point. All of our towns here in the LanChester area NEED You! We all want a better commuunity to live in, we all want to be heard. Let's make it happen now. My phone number is 717-435-7038, 717-808-8339 or e-mail me christian@mywlri.com . I too have problems paying my bills, to the point i may not eat. That is not stopping me from suffering the sacrifice needed to help our town's show the idiots that dictate to us what filtered content they feel safe showing us on TV or letting us hear on the radio or printing in the paper. I hope this reaches you in time. I'm serious about my commitment. Our country farm area is turning into a city very quickly. I did the leg work, now let's get this up and running together already. PLEASE!
And besides, better outlet for a self-absorbed failure than his own blog?
Post a Comment