Good news for Starkville: The Dispatch brings new, free newspaper to Bulldog Country Birney Imes, editor and publisher of The Dispatch, left, and incoming Mayor Parker Wiseman discuss Starkville and The Starkville Dispatch. / Luisa Porter/Dispatch Staff
The Starkville Dispatch begins publication today, offering a free news source to readers in Bulldog Country.
The new paper is a publication of The Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, and replaces The Commercial Dispatch in racks around town. The new paper will also be available in many more locations than the old Dispatch, and will be in the racks sooner.
The Starkville Dispatch will be available afternoons, Monday through Friday and on Sunday morning.
"In a time when most news about newspapers is doom and gloom, we hope this expansion will show that our industry is still alive and viable in the Golden Triangle," said Dispatch Editor and Publisher Birney Imes. "Starkville is a dynamic community, and the distance separating it and Columbus seems to be shrinking all the time. Residents of both communities visit the other for work, entertainment, dining and education."
Considering the pace of growth in Starkville, and The Dispatch's position as a news source for the entire Golden Triangle, providing a more Starkville-focused publication makes sense, Imes said.
"For years The Dispatch has maintained a Starkville bureau, and we are frequently complimented on our Starkville and Mississippi State coverage," Imes continued. "This has led us to take a more deliberate step into that market."
As part of the new free strategy in Starkville, home delivery of The Commercial Dispatch will be discontinued to subscribers, in an effort to focus on delivering as many free papers throughout town as possible.
"We hope our paid subscribers will continue to pick up the paper for free in racks around town," Imes said. "We may eventually restore paid home delivery, if demand warrants it."
Starkville readers of The Commercial Dispatch will find much of the same news in the new Starkville version of the paper, with added emphasis on Starkville news, sports, and opinion. The Starkville Dispatch will continue to maintain its reporting bureau in downtown Starkville.
Starkville readers will also see more Starkville news than before, with community profiles and coverage of issues important to Starkville and Oktibbeha county.
Please don't discontinue the home delivery! What does this mean for the future of my outstanding delivery person, Mary Tallent? Will she now be out of a job?
AINCE BIRNEY IMES THINKS STARKVILLE IS ALL THAT SUPPORTS THE BULLDOG COUNTRY, HE CAN KEEP ALL HIS PAPERS! WE'VE SUPPORTED THE BULLDOGS, AND HIS PAYCHECK FOR YEARS HERE IN COLUMBUS! AND WHAT THANKS DO WE GET? STARKVILLE A NEW PAPER. TELL BARNEY TO ENJOY HIS PAPER!
Are you going to post the obits in that paper every day or just when you feel like it like you do with this one? Whomever is responsible for doing that is either sleeping on the job or maybe needs to be in the list themselve.
I noticed the statements in Dispatch coverage of the new publication that Starkville and Columbus have different personalities, and, from what I gather from the articles, that means the press and coverage of each will be different. There might be some few differences between the two communities when it comes to brick and mortar infrastructure, educational institutions, government structure, but people are people, the basics of any community, meaning the issues they care about most; unemployment, crime, taxes, drainage and flooding, property rehabilitation, economic business and industrial development, zoning and land use, these are common to all cities and citizens.
When it comes to their government, people everywhere care about public policy, transparency, openness, responsibility and accountability, efficiency, ethical leadership and common sense and the list goes on. Those are not subjects relevant only to the residents of Starkville and Oktibbeha county. The citizens and residents of Columbus and Lowndes county care deeply about those issues also.
I can find few people in Columbus and Lowndes county who are willing to say they found the Dispatch coverage of the recent election in Columbus adequate or informative. In fact, the people I have talked to have said they knew more of the political goings on in other NE MS cities, from the Dispatch, than they learned of what was happening here in their own community.
several times, during the recent election campaign term, the management of both the Dispatch and WCBI stated that the reason they (the paper and the station) were not following the events in Columbus and were not putting as much effort into promoting as lively a political environment here, as they both did in Starkville, was that they (both managements) felt the citizens of Columbus had little or not interest in their own elections.
I hope that is not what the people of Starkville can look forward to. In spite of the argument that the two cities have different personalities, the basic fundamental aspects of human existence in the United States, at the local level, involve virtually identical topics, problems and issues important to all residents in all communities. If you decide to cover those issues in one, how can you ignore them in another?
Get a clue yourself moron. The CD uses a third party organization (lagacy.com) for obits on this site. The problem is that the Dispatch is not uploading them to the third party or the third party is not processing them. The funeral homes are not even in this equation.
"Mr. Brown", I posted my comments under my real name, so what does that say?
Does everyone who agrees with me share your ire, as none I have talked to about this have ever run for public office. Maybe those grapes grow wild, or maybe there are no grapes, only ad hominems growing freely in the bushes and byways of the internet.
You failed the address the issues I listed, specifically the emphasis on the Starkville elections, but almost none in the Dispatch hometown.
You are mistaken if you think only I noticed the mysterious difference in the way the two city elections were covered. You also failed to explain the many times both WCBI and Dispatch management went to the effort of explaining their lack of local political coverage by saying voters in Columbus weren't interested in the election.
Steve Rogers of WCBI and Birney Imes of the Commercial Dispatch made several attempts to arrange (in Steve Roger's own words)"...a real debate where candidates took on the issues and each other with a moderator who forced details, not just scripted "soundbite" answers" between Parker Wiseman and Matt Cox.
Anyone with an internet connection can read Mr. Rogers' lengthy piece on that failed effort at
http://wcbi.com/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1241917878&archive=&start_from=&ucat=8&
on his WCBI web site blog, under the headline "Starkville Candidates Have Abdicated Responsibility, Voters Shouldn't".
If you wish to refute statements I make or have made, I will be very interested in seeing your facts.
I do have to ask, because it is as dependable as the seasons, that whenever someone expresses some criticism of popular subjects in our community, the response must involve a personal attack on the messenger? I can assure you, you are not the first person who has mentioned election results in response to criticism I express. I have long gotten over any effect that has on me, but I do appreciate your wishing me good luck.
GREAT news! If I want to read news about Starkville, I usually find it FIRST at the Commercial Dispatch on-line. Starkville Daily News (SDN) on-line edition is not worth the time it takes to open the webpage & the print edition is not much better! SDN, your days are numbered! THANK YOU MR. IMES!
regarding thom geigers remarks on 6/9/09 and printed on wed., in the columbus dispatch; well wouldn't it be better if you looked for a way to contribute your skills to the betterment of this community without your pie in the sky political aspirations...you write as a sore loser and how many times has that made it....you give new meaning to the phrase " at first you don't succeed etc " well next time run for an office that you might just have a chance to win....and your ads...mr. geiger how many words...nobody takes time to read something like that...so instead of sour grapes try to find out why you dont get elected....then you might just make some progress....good luck!!!
Get a clue George. The newspaper just prints what obituaries are brought to them on time. When the funeral home does not send it because someone won't pay their bill then it is not published.
Link: More info on The Starkville Dispatch
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