Honestly, I totally support reporting good news and tooting the horn for local accomplishments. Alas, a problem arises however if the feel good, pat everyone on the back, lets bake cookies and hand out awards at the chamber meetings comes at the expense of real analysis of local issues and hard investigative reporting.

Really, who decides what is an accomplishment? Does spending millions of taxpayer dollars on an airport terminal to subsidize out of town golfers and the Bandon Dunes qualify as an accomplishment? Does trying to bring in big corporations demanding a huge environmental footprint while ignoring local renewable resources qualify as an accomplishment? Who is on the accomplishment board of approval? Who gets to decide? The readers sure don’t.

Why hasn’t The World covered the glaring inconsistencies in Stufflebean’s bankruptcy statements? Have they queried the elections board and asked why Stufflebean failed to report his own expenditures? How are we the reader supposed to make informed decisions without a free and open press?

The World’s latest editorial tries to whitewash their cheer leading efforts for the SCDC crowd or maybe they are just making excuses for not spending any resources on real investigative journalism.

As the steward of your hometown newspaper, I think celebrating those blessings is part of my job. That’s particularly true when the country is steeped in recessionary gloom.

Of course, a good newspaper also watchdogs local government and points out community problems. Delivering tough love is a core principle for journalists.

But disputes and calamities are never a complete picture. That’s why The World has made special efforts this year to report on local accomplishments, and to play up good news when we find it.

We’ll keep doing that, even when the economy improves.

We’ll keep doing that...” how about you start doing that?