A Letter To The Editor

"Good Morning Joe,

Last night on WBOC I saw how they had caught up with you concerning Watermen's closing their doors. I was surprised how long it had taken due to usually once something appears on your blog they are the next one's to cover it.

Then I wake this morning to follow my normal routine....your blog first THEN Daily Times to check the obits. While waiting for their page (which is so slow) to direct me to the obits....I noticed they ran a story about the man being killed in his apartment. YOUR THE MAN! Your only one man who also has a family life, yet you cover every story in town as it happens. WBOC and the Daily Times has more than one person yet they can't keep up with you, not even one day behind.

If it weren't for the obits I wouldn't even bother with DT. I'm still working on that for you. I do have a question about it for you. There are times where you'll show that the DT had a story and then you'll have a link which the reader can go directly to their page to read the article. You always give the DT credit instead of how they take from you and don't mention your name at all. Ok back to my question. Could you do that with the obits?"

Editor:

First of all, let me thank you for your message. WBOC is well aware of Salisbury News getting out there first, in most cases. These are very trying times financially for all of the MSM as Car Dealers are closing down, (their main advertisers) and other businesses feeling the impact of a slower economy.

One thing is for sure though, every one of the MSM Companies are keeping a much closer eye on Salisbury News because they know we have little overhead, yet we're producing articles faster. Once we're in full swing with advertising, LOOK OUT! As people tend to want a variety, Salisbury News is the most convenient source to pop on and see what's new. We update throughout the day and night, usually delivering something new each time you click on.

That being said, the Daily Times will rarely give us credit.I say rarely because they rarely give their customers the link to our Site. They have never given us credit for any article or topic, yet we have been doing so for four years. The "Professional Courtesy" is to link to an article but the MSM thinks they're too big to do so. They want Bloggers to link to them, (which I think is fair and right) but they never link to us. To be fair, WMDT regularly states they got their information from Salisbury News, so you know.

I guess many of them think, (while in a closet) that if they don't mention Salisbury News, no one will know we're out there and then they'll look like they got more for their money when they purchase the paper. Think about it like this. IF the Daily Times printed this information came from SBYNews.com, every article locally would say that and everyone would simply come here for free instead and they'd lose all their business. So you can't blame them for that.

What you can blame them for is the fact that they're not out and about much any more. They're not at many of the meetings, yet they read it on Salisbury News, call their contacts from that particular meeting and write a story without every having to be there. To me, that's pretty poor reporting and once again you're only going to read one side of the story.

As for the Obituaries, we're working on that as well. We've built the base, we have the visitors, we're bringing in the advertisers, next comes the Staff. Baby Steps.