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The mission statement of our publication was made clear in the first
issue,
Jan. 27, 2000, and we have not wavered from that mantra since
day one. Then-editor Natalie Jeckel stated our purpose in being
created when she said: "The Lincoln Daily News is devoted to telling
the stories of our county, and I am delighted to be on the ground
floor of this venture. I have learned that the good people of this
area are hungry for publications that give voice to their human
strivings, their accomplishments and their shared experiences. We
will do our best to earn the loyalty of our readers. Lincoln Daily
News will draw upon the talents of the community, featuring a
variety of writers, photographers and people with opinions to share.
In addition to each day's news stories, LDN will cover Logan County
sports, weather, feature stories and reviews, commentary, and full
reporting of the activities of Logan County organizations and
businesses." Nine years ago, the LDN was a vanguard in offering
online news, with many area papers not yet embracing the new
technology afforded by the Web. This process, this creation,
improvement and dissemination of information is now firmly
entrenched in our world. In that time LDN has been fortunate enough
to have been in place long enough to understand what we can now do
and what is expected of us.
The Internet today, via computers and modern imagery technology,
now gives us our local news and opinion like never before. The
Internet allows for us to not only present the news, but to make
corrections or additions at any time of the day or night to make
sure our readers keep abreast of local breaking news.
We at LDN understand, however, that the mechanisms used to
deliver the newspaper have never been nor ever will be more
important than the end result. Unquestioningly, a newspaper is
defined not by how the words are gathered and displayed, but rather
in what the words themselves convey. We are the offspring of more
than two centuries of growth in how the community receives their
news. We understand fully that we have a heritage to emulate and to
follow each and every day we present our publication to you. We
understand the history of the American newspaper and we take pride
in that history.
From colonial times, when a dozen newspapers were printed in
cellars and back rooms of taverns to give information and news to
the colonists contending for their freedom, to the pages of
modern-day newspapers, whether in print or electronically presented,
they have been an instrument to not only present the news honestly,
but to give dissent a means to be heard and entered into the public
discourse.
The newspaper has evolved in the past 200 years, as have the
delivery mechanisms of news and opinion. In our fledgling nation,
the eastern newspapers rapidly grew into the most important means of
information. They replaced the messengers and town criers with
permanence to their information never before seen in the colonies.
Unreliable gossip was replaced with a written account as, over and
over again, the information was passed on from American to American.
As Americans traveled farther and farther west, they brought with
them their traditions and beliefs and their desire to be informed.
Newspapers in German, Gaelic, Dutch and a dozen other languages, as
well as English, were founded and moved with the migration of the
early settlers ever westward. Many early newspaper presses moved
west in the back of a covered wagon along with food, water,
ammunition and clothing. The need to be informed was already an
important and integral part of the American settler.
By the mid-1800s, thousands of small papers in towns that were
just as small dotted the American landscape. Communities such as
Atlanta, Latham, Emden and Middletown all produced printed news
reports, as more than 12,000 newspapers across the country went to
press each day. The city of Lincoln bragged of having more than a
half-dozen newspapers.
The early Lincoln newspapers, as did their contemporaries,
carried the news of the world as well as local events and occasions.
They were not the principal source of news; they were the only
source of news. The early newspapers were the radio and television
and Internet to every American who sought to be informed. Those
papers, now almost all gone, were the lone instrument of the great
experiment of freedom of speech and information in the early days of
Logan County and all across America.
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The evolution in information-gathering and dissemination changed
because of the newspaper. Citizens who gathered around the
pot-bellied stoves of the general stores now talked of what they had
read rather than what they had heard. The newspaper was becoming the
eyes and the ears as well as the voice of the nation. The papers
changed conversation from a discourse on what had happened a while
ago to what had just occurred or was in the process of occurring.
The information fed upon itself as the effects of being informed
fueled individuals to seek still more information. Like the stoves
themselves, newspaper readers consumed and demanded replenishment
continually.
The early newspapers actually changed and united the culture of
America as tens of thousands of immigrants learned to read and write
English by using newspapers as their textbooks. Books were still not
readily available in quantities necessary to feed the insatiable
demands of avid new readers; and newspapers, with huge, pages-long
stories of heroes and villains, made their way around towns until
the papers' words were no longer legible enough to read.
As the 20th century moved through the decades, the newspaper
continued to evolve with the times. Electronic broadcasting on
radios and television news vied with and usurped the sole necessity
of reading the paper. The early radio and television newsmen, of
course, were all newspapermen who found the new mediums intriguing
enough to make the change to these new mechanisms of information.
Many papers floundered and closed during this evolution. Many
changed with the times and continued to flourish as they found their
niche, their strength in remaining viable. They realized that
finding the pulse of their community and becoming the heart to pump
the information their readers wanted to read into their pages made
them as important to be read as the town crier of old was to be
heard. In effect, by coming full circle, the newspaper had traveled
back to its roots. Roots embedded and intertwined with the very
purpose that made them grow two centuries before.
Now, thanks to all the room in the world, Internet publications
are becoming as common to the reader as those old newspapers were to
our ancestors centuries ago. As we move further into the 21st
century, we are at the brink of greater changes in how communities
receive their news.
Gone are space requirements and picture restrictions. We can
deliver the full story with supporting details, studies, graphs,
charts and links to the chronological development of an event or
issue and to other related information. Pictures have greater
clarity, and because they can be added in numbers, they can tell a
story all by themselves.
Technological advancements have created a great new world of how
news is currently presented, and this will continue to evolve in the
upcoming years and decades.
It is our hope to keep up with these advances in such a way as to
serve you with the best news product available. When LDN began as an
online-only daily newspaper, we had a head start on most community
news sources. It is our hope to keep up with the new ways, and to
remember our legacy.
Most important to Lincoln Daily News has been the interaction
with our community. You are what matters most and have put LDN here.
Those who have contributed to the news since our first days are
beyond number. We expressly appreciate all, and we wish to thank
each and every one of you for your submissions and for reading.
The Lincoln Daily News staff thanks you!
[LDN staff] |
