Local Newspaper Kowtows to Big Local Advertisers

The Morning Scum, our poor excuse for a local newspaper has done it again.

This time they've written a wishy-washy editorial about the library millage coming up on Tuesday. Instead of taking a stand on an issue, which is what editorials used to do before the only motivation for a newspaper was to make a profit, the Morning Sun asks readers to weigh the issues.

Is the editorial for the library millage or against it? Can't really tell from the editorial, but then all those stores that are flying the vote no on the millage signs are owned by rich local Republican advertisers.

Does the newspaper care about the people of this community or what? The Morning Sun is typical of chain newspapers that suck as much money out of a community as they can and send it to corporate headquarters in some other state so they can buy up any competitors.

There used to be other newspapers in our area that didn't kowtow to advertisers, but they've all been bought up now except for the Shepherd Argus that is owned by a Democrat and they don't have that much circulation.

The local news coverage in the Morning Sun is minimal meetings-type coverage of our local governments and most of our local townships get no coverage at all. Remember the good old days of journalism when the role of the press was to hold local officials accountable?

Forget about it. If it doesn't happen at a local government meeting then the public doesn't get to know about it in Isabella County because our local monopoly newspaper doesn't cover it.

When I went to Journalism School I learned that the role of journalists was to find out what is really going on in your community and the only way you could do that was to find out more than just what happened at meetings. I worked at some real newspapers that did exactly that and I really miss journalism that cared more about the people than about their advertisers.