Maybe my magnifying glass was broken, but my review of Saturday's Lamar Democrat, which was published on the 60-year anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, which hastened the end of World War II, detected no mention of that momentous event...even though the controversial decision to drop the bomb was made by a man who was born in a small two-story house in Lamar on May 8, 1884.
As a reader pointed out, in April the Democrat made no mention of the 60th anniversary of the ascendancy of Harry S Truman to the presidency after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Last year, there was no mention in the local newspaper of the 60th anniversary of one of the most famous dates in Lamar history, the day Senator Truman accepted the vice presidential nomination in front of the Barton County Courthouse.
The lack of coverage extends to coverage of the city's top tourist attraction, The Truman Birthplace. In those days when I was editor of The Democrat, from November 1982 until I left to take the Carthage Press position in March 1990, the Birthplace was a primary beat. We ran visitor statistics, comparisons, features. To run a Lamar newspaper without regular mentions of Harry S Truman is ludicrous.
2 comments:
Have you ever considered returning to Lamar and either starting a new paper or offering to buy the Democrat?
I am sure if YOU sent THEM the story the would run it. I have heard that is how they get 75% of their stories/bylines. Great investigative journalism huh? But hey, we ARE caught up on meth labs and hospital board meetings.
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