Big news stories tend to prompt rumors.
The events typically are complex, involve government, prominent people and thousands and sometimes millions of dollars.
It’s easy to get on social media and spout off that you know something that others don’t. We are not talking about asking legitimate questions and voicing concerns. We are talking about direct allegations of theft, fraud, lies and crimes.
And then someone calls the newspaper or stops by our office and wants to know why we are not writing about these heinous acts! Most of the time we have already heard about these allegations and checked them out. And sometimes we already have the answers and kindly ask them to read a certain edition of your Clarksdale Press Register where it has all been explained.
Often what we have written is somehow not good enough. Often they tell us they don’t even have a subscription to the newspaper or they “missed that story.”
Often they just want us to do their dirty work and throw a brick at someone.
That is not the job of a responsible hometown newspaper. That is not the way the people at your Clarksdale Press Register do business.
We have been on top of several big stories involving allegations in our schools, college, utility company, city hall and the courthouse. But until we have the cold hard facts, we don’t do a story. If a newspaper can’t prove it, they don’t print it. If it can’t be proved, it probably didn’t happen.
The story that repeatedly makes the rounds involves a planned development in Clarksdale and the millions of local and federal dollars that are circulating in our community.
We are pleased to hear city officials say once again that the $5 million taxpayers gave them in a 2019 bond referendum is being spent only on the items listed in the bond language on the ballot. That fact is required by law.
Most of the time the allegations are politically motivated. Most of the time someone doesn’t like an elected official, school leader or government employee and is seeking to smear their name.
Again that is not the job of your Clarksdale Press Register.
With that being said, we do encourage people to come to us with hard facts and figures, detailed information and what they know to be true.
This community has a right to be concerned about the spending of tax dollars. They have a right to be concerned about crime and crooks, drugs and violence. And we agree lawbreakers, at any level, need to be stopped.
But Clarksdale has to rise above the petty and unprovable.
Let’s stop the rumor mill. Let’s tell the truth.
Floyd Ingram is the Editor of your Clarksdale Press Register. Call him at 662-627-2201 and tell the truth.
