It's beginning to feel personal

I glanced through the Lindsborg News Record today. I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything about Damn Yankees, the summer 2007 Broadway RFD production. I wrote and sent a press release to the LNR - or at least I think I did - I used the same e-mail address I used last summer.

The LNR refused to publish anything about Talley's Folly, the show I directed for the college. That was frustrating. I was told that they didn't publish because we mentioned prices and hadn't purchased an ad. Bad journalism. Almost every paper I know of keeps a dividing line between the business and the news, so that we don't have all the news that money can buy. The exception was the LA Times a year or two ago. A new publisher wanted to do what the LNR does as a matter of policy, and the journalists at the paper raised a stink. So did the Columbia Journalism Review and a number of other journalism commentators.

However, knowing the policy meant that I would abide by it. So I sent a press release about the show and the Membership Party on Sunday, June 23rd. Nothing about money in the release. In fact, the Membership Party is free and open to the public. I sent a photo of Cody Whetstone. I got the release to the paper early - Wednesday morning. Nothing. So, is it me? Am I on a banned person's list because I dare to say that there are things about the New Record that could be improved. I also defend some of the things that others criticize. But I have to wonder if it is a personal issue.

I have sent another press release for next week's paper. This one is accompanied by a photo of Rachel Bouza, the same photo I've posted here. I won't be in town to see the photo, so somebody tell me whether or not it shows up in the press. Then I'll know that it wasn't me, but a genuine news judgment that kept notice out of this week's paper.