I attended the “Fight for Freedom” forum on Dec. 19 which attracted an overflow audience of over 500 people at the JFK Middle School in Florence. It featured among others, our Congressman Jim McGovern, with excellent talks and discussions.
I was also displeased at not finding coverage of this event in the Gazette or the Springfield Republican despite their being notified over two weeks in advance.
The response of your publisher to this criticism was that they were not able to have a reporter there. It seems that this was one of the most newsworthy events in the Valley in recent times and believe this was a rather weak excuse for the absence when there is coverage of much less newsworthy events that might be regarded as having more entertainment value and attractiveness to readers.
I regard such as another example of the news media valuing entertainment over news and discouraging potential subscribers (like me) who turn to other news sources like the internet. I believe media such as TV do a better job of entertaining than newspapers who are not serving a needed function.
Richard S. Stein
Amherst