Free information flow at risk in Sedona

SEDONA, AZ - Nov 12, 2008 - Our loyal following who read articles and watch video on our Sedona.biz and iSedona.com websites and receive our weekly email newsletter know that the internet has revolutionized news.

Where else can Sedonans get local news delivered free, in real time, and right into their home with rich media attachments like video?

In this day and age, especially in environmentally conscious Sedona, why would anyone pay to read news that is days old and not sustainable?

To be clear, the internet is not news, it is a delivery mechanism. Neither the internet nor the printed page can replace solid journalism. The Red Rock News has some good journalists, and so do we.

However, those who follow the newspaper industry know that it is currently in deep, deep trouble. Circulation and ad revenues are down significantly as classified ads and readership move en masse to the internet. The industry is bloated with debt, newspaper pages are shrinking, layoffs are a weekly occurrence, and management is slow to accept reality.

We recently reported that Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the AZ Daily Sun, suspended its dividend, ceased employee 401(k) matching, and is grappling with a stock price trading at historic lows. The Red Rock News is privately owned.

Many newspaper managers certainly must long for the easy days when they controlled the dissemination of news, and when the high cost to print and deliver a newspaper kept the competition out.

Today (yes, today, the day we are publishing this article) we learned that the City of Sedona is holding off sending its weekly column to us. The column is typically written by a different city staffer or member of the Sedona City Council, and we have been publishing it for months on our site and in our weekly newsletter, along with the Red Rock News.

These city columns keep full and part-time residents and visitors up to date on what's happening in the Sedona city government.

The column is emailed to us and the Red Rock News, in the same email, a week in advance by a city staffer. To be courteous, we have always held off publishing it on our site until the following Friday to coincide with its publication in the Red Rock News.

As we understand, the editor of the Red Rock News first learned last week that the city was also sending these columns to us. We understand that the Red Rock News is trying to prevent the city from making them available to us.

For those who may not know, Sedona.biz has been operating since April 2006 and last month our site received 22,000 unique visitors. Our weekly email newsletter is sent to our 5,000 plus subscriber base and approximately 1,000 readers open it each week.

We are hopeful that this issue will be resolved quickly (perhaps before Friday), so that the City of Sedona can keep those who don't read the Red Rock News fully informed.

Readers' comments:

#1 Since I subscribe to the Red Rock News, and read every page of the each first section twice a week, I primarily read Sedona.biz for articles that do not appear in the RRN. The RRN does not provide discussion. It rarely covers more than one viewpoint on a topic in the same issue of the paper, except for unvetted letters to the editor that often grossly misrepresent facts.

"Papers," as they've long been called, are supposed to investigate, to go behind the scenes, to print what isn't obvious. If you want to see pictures of babies born recently to Sedona residents, you'll have to get the Verde Independent. If you want in-depth analysis and long-form journalism, you'll have to read The Sedona Observer or the Sedona Verde Valley Times. If you want thoughtful editorials instead of pot shots, turn to the Red Rock Review.

Though the current editor of the RRN joined it with many new ideas and a sharp legal mind, the paper has appeared to slide backwards under the consistent bias of the publisher. These may not be facts, but they are commonly referred to as the Larson Legacy (I speak euphemistically).

There's room, even in a small town, for many points of view. If they cannot all be presented under one banner, we need many banners.

The city is so bad at communicating, they'd be better off sending their columns to all the papers instead of only one or two, especially in an economy of budgetary cut backs.

Sedona.Biz is superb for its timeliness. While I'm not a big fan of the clutter of ads in the email or on the site, and still haven't worked out the interconnection of websites and partners, it's reliable for news that's still new, and good journalism. Now if I could just find a way to curl up under a lap robe on the sofa with my desktop computer!

#2 Permit me to say that you were too polite. The Red Rock News is a lousy newspaper and its tactics for damaging or eliminating its competition are about on a level with its shoddy journalism.

#3 I heartily agree with Comments 1 and 2, but feel compelled to add that the Sedona RR News because of its bias and apparent unwillingness to cover all sides of an issue; sets a terrible example of journalism to Sedona's children and is also destructive to the democratic process that should be operating in Sedona.

#4 I am in agreement with the previous three comments. The RRN has been slanting Sedona's news for quite some time. Please keep us informed as to the City's final decision regarding sending its columns to Sedona.biz as well as to the RRN. Actually, why doesn't the city send the column to all publications in Sedona? Wouldn't that behoove the city in terms of increasing citizen awareness and input?

#5 Not only is the RRN keeping you from publishing the City's column, I just heard this past weekend that the Mayor's column in the paper is being restricted.

I subscribe to the RRN, and understand their desire to be the exclusive source to boost their value, but I feel this is not the information that should be limited in this way.

Good luck to you and other media outlets, both print and electronic, in overcoming this obstacle!

#6 Like usual, Carl is polite and professional when he speaks of the Red Rock News. Of course, he always maintains a high level of articulation and courtesy. However, those of us who don't have to be the same can come right out and say that the Red Rock News is shaky journalism, at best. Censoring information has become second nature to today's media, and censoring for the sake of dollars is their first nature. Anyway, thanks, Carl, for that informative article. What's the next step?