Friday, June 19, 2009

Local residents should offer to buy the St. Augustine Record

Morris Publishing just got a seventh extension on its $9.7 million debt. See below.
We wish them well. We wish they'd stop covering up for those for whom coverups are a way of life. We wish they'd print the news without fear or favor. We wish they'd afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted (instead of the other way around).

We need a local newspaper that will print the news without fear or favor.

We have Folio Weekly (progressive Jacksonville weekly) and the Collective Press (progressive St. Augustine less-frequently-than-monthly newspaper).

But we need a daily newspaper with the resources to employ more than two (2) Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) news reporters and investigate what needs investigating hereabouts.

Will the New York Times Company kindly please buy the St. Augustine Record and Jacksonville Times-Union, as it should have done in 1982?

Failing that, will local progressive residents put their money where their mouth is and buy the St. Augustine Record? You will be glad you did -- President John F. Kennedy looked forward to being a newspaper publisher after his presidency. It would be fun!

Informed observers believe that as little as $5 million (or less) could rescue the St. Augustine Record from the Morris Communications empire, allowing us to have a local newspaper that is worthy of the name.

What do you reckon?

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