The News Herald has it's own MO. It runs a story that it's editor thinks has some kind of merit. Then the next issue it runs an editorial emphasizing the importance of it's previous story as though that would somehow lend credibility to it's previous story. They've done it over and over.

Most recently, News Herald publisher Kevin Burcham and editor Greg Wilkerson took up the task of crying foul about a direct mail piece that went to many homes in Loudon County that pointed out some of the failures accomplished by county mayor candidate Matt Brookshire, as Lenoir City's mayor. Big breaking story in Wednesday's paper, followed by editorial in Monday's paper. It's so predicable when they're trying to push their agenda.

Forget the fact that Burcham and company hasn't reported any real news in forever but suddenly out of nowhere they run this, what they think is a big story but didn't mention a single word about the claims against Brookshire that were stated on the flyer. Wonder why they didn't try to prove or disprove the claims?

If a tree falls in the desert and no one is there to hear it, does it make any noise? If a news paper runs a story and nobody reads it, is it really a story? In my personal opinion, the News Herald has given up even pretending to be a "NEWS" paper. They've even had to revert to just running as many "people pictures" as they can in each edition in hopes of at least selling a few papers to the family members of those whose pictures appear in the paper. You may recall, not long ago Burcham even threatened to sue the county if the election office didn't pay him to run ads in his paper. News Herald Threatens Law Suit Times must be hard at the paper.

Those of us who have been here a long time can remember when we counted on the News Herald for all of our local news. Alas, that time has long since passed. In my opinion, the News Herald has devolved into nothing more than a social rag with a decidedly liberal, progressive slant used to carry out their own agendas, political and otherwise, and that's sad.

Here's a thought. If the News Herald really wants to sale papers, maybe reporting on real news might do the trick. But till we ever have a true news paper, I guess we'll just have to depend on me for the real news.