When I woke up last Thursday morning, I felt pretty good about the newspaper.
The last two of the county’s high school graduations stood out on the font page. Inside, there was everything you needed to know about the B.B. King Homecoming Festival.
I usually have a gut feeling when I’ve accidently left something out that needed to go in. Last week, I didn’t have that feeling. I guess it was the general lack of sleep, or maybe it was all of the other content, but to my horror, I discovered that I had neglected to inform my readers properly about last week’s special election runoff and this week’s senate primaries.
There was no sample ballot in the paper.
Needless to say, the readers were upset, and they should be.
I can’t blame Ambien, because I don’t take it, so I’m just going to have to take the beating I deserve on this one.
First off, I want to make clear that there was no conscious effort to omit the ballot from the paper, and one will appear in the paper prior to future elections.
Second, everybody and every business always has things they need to work on and strengthen. Elections are where we are going to focus moving forward.
We’ve tried to keep track of different candidates who pass through Sunflower County, but we need to be more diligent than ever about bringing the latest and best information about candidates and issues to our readers.
I promise that we will do better in the future.
It is our job as the community newspaper to make sure voters have all of the information necessary to make informed decisions.
Politics can be divisive these days, but elections are still one of the most important events in our society.
This is the chance for the people to have their say and decide who represents them, whether it be in Jackson or Washington D.C.
Even an election that covers a smaller portion of this large county, such as the one for House District 30, is important. It is important to the folks who live in that district in the northern part of the county.
Mississippi is faced with two U.S. Senate elections this year.
The results of those two races could dictate national policy and how much Federal money will flow back down to Mississippi over the next several years.
If community newspapers consistently fail to play their role in informing the public during these critical times, they can expect backlash from their readers.
My hope is that you will accept this as a humble apology for the oversight and know that this is an isolated incident.
I promise to do better in the future.
