D-Day
Today is the 63rd anniversay of D-Day. We didn't have a full news story in the paper, an omission that several irritated readers have pointed out.
If we had not been over there, we would be speaking German today, one caller said.
Today -- along with Dec. 7, Memorial Day and Veterans Day -- require news stories or people think you don't respect veterans, which is far, far from the truth.
Here's our deal: We didn't publish a full news story today because, frankly, we didn't have anything very good. But on A2, we noted that today was the anniversary and sent readers to three Web sites with D-Day information. We also published a column by Ned Harrison about D-Day in our community newspaper inserted inside the N&R in Guilford County. Our plan is to provide a decent package on the commemorations that occurred today for tomorrow's paper, including a story about this.
Comments (1)
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The News & Record published a very informative and very extensive and very exhaustive series of articles on the front page on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. The next year, when coverage was scaled back to one story, people complained. Go figure.
But at some point, you have to start pulling back from all this anniversary stuff and leave it to the history books. The mission of a newspaper is to illuminate what has happened in the past 24 hours and the current conditions of current society. Frankly, we've become commeration-obsessed, and for some people, almost to the exclusion of what's going on today.
You could fill a newspaper up with nothing but commemorations if you didn't put the brakes on somewhere. After all, we probably also would not be here without the Battle of the Kings Mountain. Or the Declaration of Independence. (I think by now you get my drift).
I think people should go back and read newspapers from World War II. You probably won't find a whole lot of World War I anniversary stories in there.
Posted on June 8, 2007 9:27 AM