Editor's Notebook

I was raised in a home that valued newspapers. When I was a pre-schooler, my parents and grandparents began reading newspaper stories to me. I’ll admit I was mainly interested in the pictures and the cartoons but that interest helped to earn me regular sessions with the adults in my world and their newspapers.

Living less than a half mile from the Nuckolls and Jewell county line, my parents subscribed to both The Superior Express and the Jewell County Record as they wanted to keep up on the happenings in both counties. I skipped many of the community columns as I didn’t know the people mentioned but I read some regularly.

I was also exposed to daily newspapers. My parents subscribed to at least two and sometimes three daily papers.

My grandparents were also daily newspaper readers. With family in the Kansas City area, my mother’s parents subscribed to both the Omaha World-Herald and Kansas City Star and having lived in Mitchell County, Kansas before moving to Nuckolls County, they also subscribed to the Beloit weekly. I liked to read the Beloit paper’s historical column about early days in Mitchell County and Harold Dwyer’s column entitled the “Galloping Goose.” Dwyer as a longtime friend of my grandparents and sometimes stopped to visit them when in Superior on other business.

My father’s parents subscribed to one of the Lincoln dailies. I suspect their interest in the Lincoln news was influenced by the fact they had a son living in Lincoln.

I’ve long thought to be informed a person needs to regularly read the local weekly newspaper and a daily from one of their state’s larger cities.

As Grandfather Blauvelt’s vision dimmed, he would ask me to read the daily paper to him.

I regularly am surprised to see questions posted on social media sites that could easily have been answered by reading the local newspaper.

And newspapers can also have an influence on national affairs.

Were it not for a Montana newspaper, we might never have known about the Chinese spy balloons that have floated over the United States.

I understand the our national government didn’t want us to know about the balloons for fear the knowledge would cool our country’s relations with China.

That makes no sense to me. The Chinese had to know the Americans would not be happy to have their balloons invading our air space.

If the balloon shot down over the Atlantic ocean was really a weather balloon blown off course, why didn’t China notify the United States and Canada of the balloon’s presence.

Looks to me like the balloon was purposely directed over the two Norther American countries on a spy mission.

Thankfully a Montana newspaper spilled the beans and let the American public know something was up. The Billings Gazette reported in the middle of last week that the president of the United States knew abut the presence of the Chinese spy balloon for several days before it was spotted drifting over Montana.

But the White House wanted to keep it secret fearing news of the surveillance balloon would sabotage Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s planned diplomatic trip to China, the first such visit in five years.

That changed last Wednesday when Larry Mayer, a Billings Gazette photographer, responding to vague reports that the airspace around Billings had been closed, photographed an odd glowing orb high in the sky.

Mayer discovered the orb was a high-altitude balloon powered by a large solar array. The balloon also was photographed by Chase Doak, a Billings videographer and former Gazette online editor.

The Gazette’s publication of those photos and a story connecting them to the closed airspace and the fighter jets being scrambled to track the balloon was quickly picked up by newspapers around world.

By Thursday evening, China officials acknowledged the balloon was theirs, but insisted it was a harmless weather balloon that simply blew off course.

Journalists are trained to be on the lookout for the unusual, to look for things others need to know.

 

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