GAVEL GAMUT
By Jim Redwine
www.jamesmredwine.com
(Week of 27 October 2025)
NEWS ON OUR DOORSTEPS
According to our new Bible, the Internet, local, independent newspapers are rapidly going the way the American bison did in the 19th century. I researched these facts via the Internet. The last time I entered a public library was about the time Ted Turner unleashed CNN in 1980. However, the last time I received a non-amalgamated view of the news was only today when my October 01 and October 08, 2025 editions of The Posey County News arrived in my post office box.
Some cynics might opine that my view of our fine local newspaper is colored by the fact this column appears every week. Maybe so, but I submit my long-time personal friends, Editors and Owners Connie Redman Pearce and Dave Pearce, are upholding one of America’s essential building blocks of our republic.
At a time when Rodney King’s 1992 plea of, “Can’t we all just get along?”, is belied by the facts of societal anger and hate-speech, America needs its local newspapers to help bind us together in spite of strongly held opposing views. Talking heads on television or Facebook might as well be artificially unintelligently generated. We do not know nor can we evaluate their information. But in local newspapers writers are both known and accountable. We can weigh the pros and cons.
I have been writing the “Gavel Gamut” column since 1990. Over 1,000 of my columns have appeared in Dave and Connie’s paper and not once have they censored, or approved of, one word. I write what I think and it appears for the reader’s analysis, acceptance, rejection or lack of interest.
On the Opinion Page, Dave and Connie explicitly state the content of the columns and cartoons are solely those of the contributors. When I saw the cartoon by Joe Heller in the October 08 edition about “local news” and “community spirit” and the October 01 cartoon by Andy Singer about America’s shameful abetting of the Zionist genocide against Palestinians, I knew the tradition of Benjamin Franklin and Will Rogers was still vibrant.
Thank you, Connie and Dave, for helping to preserve one of our essential liberties!
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