A MATTER OF SURVIVAL

In today's world of back-door deals and basic dishonesty, if one is looking for an example of complete "transparency", all one has to do is investigate the P&C's new comment policy. Common sense will lead you to a conclusion that is as clear as Charleston's July sunshine.

For years, anyone could comment on one of the newspaper's articles and NOT have his/her name made public. Many of these comments corrected erroneous "facts" written in the articles. Many times, folks with inside information on the story (employees, elected officials) would add details which shed new light on the subject. These folks could ill afford to have their names revealed for fear of job loss or other negative ramifications.

"In order to promote more civil discourse", the P&C now requires readers to post comments through a FaceBook account, which would result in "anyone" being given access to the poster's identity and private information. Kind of defeats the "Anonymous" idea, not to mention the "Friending" concept on FaceBook, huh?

Is the ultimate goal of the P&C as simple as it appears? Is it too embarrassing to have "Joe Blow from Cottageville" demonstrate the incompetence of the journalistic policies and the sloppiness of the reporting at this paper? (We really shouldn't even mention the quality of proof-reading so we won't.) Was this new policy put into place to stop the continuing exposer of this situation?

This move by the P&C appears to have solved their immediate problem. Judging from the existing number of comments, or the lack there of, there will now be limited interference from the public. Since most responsible (former) readers will not allow this unreasonable invasion of privacy, the comment sections are running a bit thin now.

As it stands, the P&C can now print any misleading story, slanted to any degree, without fear of any contradiction from the informed public.

We hope the P&C executives are not spending too much money on the celebration party, though. The paper has experienced a drastic decline in subscriptions over the last few years due to editorial policies. Now, it would appear they are losing a huge number of their on-line followers as a result of this new policy.

It would seem to defy logic for the P&C to continually follow a business plan that virtually guarantees the demise of the enterprise but that appears to be the case. It is equally frustrating to the casual observer that the solution to the difficulties of the P&C is painfully simple. If residents of the Tri-County area had access to a local paper that honestly and fully reported on items of general interest, they would buy it. These folks are very interested in issues like government corruption and crime trends. They are very interested in issues that have an impact on the economy.

These folks have had their fill of a newspaper that avoids the real facts and only presents politically correct fluff. But, this would require the absence of the Liberal mindset among the leadership of this fictitious newspaper. Unfortunately, this is something that's not going to happen at the P&C.

Over the years, due to questionable leadership, the News And Courier/ Evening Post organization has been reduced to "fish-wrap" status. Now, it appears the resulting P&C is ultimately headed for the ash heap of Charleston history. So sad.

FLASH BACK

A warm Sunday morning on the streets of Charleston.........

You wake to the melodious voices of the young newspaper boys singing.......

"SUNDAY MORNIN' NEWS AND CO-RI- OH."