Longtime reader Thomas Ward noticed something odd about Wednesday's print edition of the Daily Times.
He was not alone.
You might have heard that President Trump brought one of his MAGA campaign rallies to the region Tuesday night. "45" appeared before a crowd of more than 7,500 jammed into the Wildwoods Convention Center in the shore town.
People had been standing in line since Sunday to get in. Stores that normally are shuttered for the winter re-opened and were doing a brisk business. Wildwood's T-shirt shops were jumping, hawking any and all kinds of Trump memorabilia. Hotels were packed. You couldn't find a room in town.
The president hit all his familiar themes, blasting the press, Democrats, the "witch hunt" impeachment going on back in D.C., immigration and the booming economy.
But you'd be hard-pressed to know that reading Wednesday's print edition of the Daily Times. It was not mentioned in print. No story, no pictures, no nothing.
Ward was not amused. He fired off an email to let me know how he felt.
"I know you like to say that the Daily Times does not have a liberal bent, but not one mention of the Trump rally in Wildwood in today's paper," he wrote. "I think that shows your true colors. I used to deliver this paper as a kid and have read every day for most of my life and I am going to be 62."
Guess what?
Ward is absolutely ... Correct!
Look, Wildwood is not exactly in our coverage area. We focus laser-like on things happening here in Delaware County. The truth is with our limited staff it's highly unlikely that I would have sent a reporter or photogrpaher down the shore to cover the rally. And before you hit me over the head with it, the same would have held true if it were a Biden, Sanders or Warren rally.
That said, it still does not excuse the complete lack of coverage in Wednesday's paper. That's why we pay for the Associated Press - to cover so many things outside our reach.
AP did move a story and photos, which appeared on our website, but the story moved after the rally, about 9:30.
It's likely that most of our news pages were locked down at that point. Doesn't matter. We should have saved space for the story. I could bore you with stories of how the business has changed, how some things - including the actual production of the print pages every night - is now out of our control.
But the bottom line is what our readers hold in their hands each day.
And yesterday they were not happy with what they saw - and let me know it.
I fielded lots of calls and emails.
Good for them.
I still don't think it necessarily shows we have a liberal bias. If the rally occurred here in Delco and we ignored it, that would be a different case altogether.
But in this case, the readers were right, we were wrong.
I'll steal a page out of the Andy Reid playbook:
I need to do a better job.
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