OPINION
So much can change in a year.
A little over one year ago, my family invested in the Post-Signal, taking over ownership of the oldest business in Denton County.
Although my title went from editor to editor and publisher, my duties largely only changed on the business side of the newspaper.
That's because I have largely been at the helm of the editorial decisions of the paper since early November of 2019.
I'm grateful my family invested in these communities we serve by buying the paper.
That's because having a newspaper transition from a longtime owner to a new owner is a challenge in this industry.
Fewer papers are being purchased by independent owners, like our family.
One of the things we invested in is the paper archives we have that stretch back to 1967.
Throughout the 146 years we have been in print, the newspaper has provided a continuous view of the priorities and events important to the communities we serve.
I don't take that responsibility lightly.
Although my title changed with the purchase, my approach to our coverage did not.
I have and will continue to remain committed to unbiased, non-sensationalized coverage of our communities.
Claims otherwise are just that: claims. That includes when the mayor said online that 'The Post could have chosen their words better but I get the sensational sells papers.'
Someone asked me on Tuesday why we decided to run the piece Mayor Elisa Beasley referred to in her letter to the editor this week.
The impetus was a Facebook Live video the mayor published that was quoted in last week's issue, in which she claimed that the complaints filed against her were that Monica David “basically filed a lawsuit against” Beasley. I wasn't planning to write about the complaints until there was a resolution. The mayor herself made them news.
As for the headline being considered sensationalism, headlines are supposed to be short but descriptive and written in present tense.
It's hard to get more accurate but even-keel than 'Mayor faces ethics filings' in the first piece we published about the ethics filings the mayor faced in a tight space.
It is the responsibility of a newspaper to pursue truth and to give people context about the issues that affect their lives.
We do so in a limited medium, so we can't tell every story, include every detail of every interview or have lengthy headlines.
What we can do is shed light on certain situations and provide, we hope, enough context that people curious for answers know where to delve deeper.
Our articles don't tell people what to think.
In fact, if you line up 10 people with wildly different views and have them read the same article, you'll likely get 10 wildly different takes on the report they read.
We are not entertainment- as-news.
We are not social media. We are a small business that cares about the communities on our masthead.
Abigail Allen is the Editor & Publisher of the Post-Signal. She can be reached at [email protected].
