Keeping up the good work

Last Thursday night, the Gonzales City Council awarded the Gonzales Inquirer the status “newspaper of record” for the next 12 months. To the average citizen, this isn’t a big deal, but what it means for a newspaper is that the city will advertise job openings and legal notices in the Inquirer’s classified section.

Typically, this isn’t a big deal for either a city or a newspaper because often, there is only one newspaper in town and a city doesn’t have to choose. Yet, it’s a very big deal for the Gonzales Inquirer and its staff. The GI was the newspaper of record for the city for well over 100 years, carrying notices of employment, announcements, and so much more for this community; birth notices, death notices, marriages, parades and the such. For well over 100 years, the Gonzales Inquirer was the primary way the citizens of this community got their local news. There was radio and television and finally the internet, but a newspaper was the trusted source for information not just in Gonzales, but in towns all over the world for a long time.

Trusted source…that phrase has been in question and is being questioned all over our world the last several years. Can the media be trusted? Are we biased?

Sometime before I ever stepped foot into Gonzales someone questioned the integrity of the Inquirer; was it trustworthy? Was it one-sided? Because of the questioning, another newspaper was formed, another voice in the community, was it fair and balanced? That isn’t for me to say. I know competition is good, it raises your game, competitors must be respected and I believe that is something we have done here, respect our competitors.

I can’t speak to what my predecessors did or how they behaved but I bring an editorial integrity with me in my stint as publisher here. I’ve worked for some very well respected publications throughout my 26 years in publishing; Roll Call, Texas Lawyer, The Economist, publications that tried to be transparent and accurate in all they write about. I never remember a time that I knew of anyone writing one-sided but I do remember often my colleagues writing stories that made certain groups or individuals feel as though they were being singled out, on purpose. I know of big stories broken by media companies I’ve worked for that were only shared for the good of the community, not to be hurtful to one group or particular person. The motto of the Economist, an influential weekly distributed all over the world is “in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”

That’s a bit heady for most of us, but the bottom line is that they try their hardest to give their readers intelligent articles on a variety of topics affecting our world. And that is what we intend to do here at the GI, offer intelligent and informative articles on issues affecting this local community. If we believe its information our citizens need to know about, we will share it with you. Our own motto is “Open to All, Controlled by None.”

We couldn’t be prouder to bring the title “Paper of Record for the City of Gonzales” back to the Inquirer, we’ve worked hard for it. Most don’t realize we are but a staff of six, we are a small business working hard to earn the respect of all the citizens of our community, an almost impossible feat.

At the city council meeting last Thursday, an elected official told me to “keep up the work.” We intend to.