Hold the applause.
There is an item in today's Daily Times that I am sure will delight many of our readers, while causing no shortage of angst in others.
That is because, starting next week, there will be something very different about the Friday edition of the Daily Times.
Jodine Mayberry's column will not be in it.
Jodine is penning her last column as a regular Friday contributor today. You can read it here.
I can hardly wait for the gentleman - who routinely leaves me voicemails at 4 a.m. to castigate Jodine, usually in the most vulgar of terms - to call to exult in victory.
He can save his breath.
Jodine has not been fired. We have not had a falling-out.
Her column has become the latest victim of the coronavirus pandemic.
Let me explain.
Look, this industry was on shaky footing before COVID-19. With the spread of this pandemic, we're all looking for ventilators.
The latest wave of cuts to hit the business has decimated the freelance budget that we use to pay our columnists.
We have three feature columnists: Christine Flowers on Sunday; Chris Freind on Wednesday; Jodine on Friday. I fill the space on Page 6 on Monday with my weekly Letter From the Editor. The other days we try to pick up columns from writers at our sister papers.
This trio came into existence a few years back when my regular columnist, Gil Spencer, finally wised up and fled the newspaper industry for a public relations gig.
I replaced him with this new trio. They've anchored Page 6 ever since. Until today.
Our columnists spark as much reaction - pro and con - as anything that appears in the paper, Sound Off included.
Flowers and Freind represent two of the most conservative voices in the region, something that those who insist the paper has a liberal bias, fail to see.
Instead, they routinely would vent their wrath on me, and question why I would allow her to say some of the things she said. I'd get similar complaints from the Left about Flowers and Freind, just not as many.
All three of these folks fulfill the primary mission of a columnist: They have something to say.
Taking a position - and stating it forcefully - is their job. They are not reporters. They write opinion. There is a difference. Not everyone realizes that.
I want them to take those kinds of positions. I want people to pick up the paper on a certain day because they know a certain column is going to appear in it. The last thing I want is for people to simply shrug their shoulders. I don't want them to be bored. If they want to be put to sleep they can read my column on Monday.
The other constant complaint I get is from those on one extreme or the other of the political spectrum who simply cannot understand why I offer columnists this kind of forum. This is an odd quibble I always get from my liberal friends. They wonder why I run Flowers and Freind when I would never espouse such opinions myself.
That's the whole point.
I don't have to agree.
And I certainly would not spike a column simply because I don't agree with it.
Our opinions allow for all voices to be heard, despite the belief of so many who insist that is not the case.
There is a word for the actions many would like me to carry out, to rule out some opinions over others. It's called censorship. It's a very dangerous slope, one I have no interest in traversing.
When I learned of the latest budget cuts, it was my sad duty to inform the columnists of their plight, and ask them - OK, beg actually - if they would be interesting in continuing to write gratis.
Freind and Flowers will continue to appear in their regular slots.
Jodine will not.
Jodine and I go way back. Her husband, Stu Rose, along with his second-in-command Linda DeMeglio, hired me back in 1982. I've been here ever since. Not a day has gone by when I have not fielded at least one phone call complaining that we lean too far to the Left, or the Right.
That probably won't change.
Even if one our foremost liberal voice has gone silent.
To her credit, in her last column Jodine took up the case for local journalism, the value of what we do here every day, and what a local newspaper means to a community..
This newspaper will be lesser in the coming weeks.
Jodine Mayberry's column will not be in it.
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