NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- I find it interesting and disturbing that the Daytona Beach News Journal has published six stories maligning Headlines Surfer, its publisher Henry Frederick and County Chair Jason Davis, especially since many more important happenings in this county have been ignored by this biased print newspaper in favor of its influential friends that provide advertising, especially taxpayer revenues.
If the bigwigs in the area don’t like you or something you are saying or doing they will use their best weapon, the local newspaper to air the dirty laundry.
No one can dare questions them or their intentions or even realizes how biased their reporting has been for many years. The time to question the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority’s decision was when the presentation by Mr. Frederick was up for approval -- not weeks after the interim director approved a contract and then groused about it behind the county chair's back.
Mr. Frederick asked Mr. Davis to come to the initial meeting where he made a presentation in June for a marketing agreement with interim Director Renee Tallevast. She signed the agreement July 9.
Then on Aug. 5, she went behind the county chair's back and complained. The next day, the News-Journal ran a big front page story.
This was followed by a local section story quoting New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer who was piling on. Then when the County Council met, SVAA Chairman Palmer Wilson was removed from the board in a 4-3 vote led by Council member Joshua Wagner.
But on Thursday, Wilson appeared in front of the County Council and Wagner admitted there was a rush to judgment. The council voted unanimously to restore Wilson to the authority.
When elected, Mr. Davis admitted he was new to this political game and he said he was going to learn how it all worked. His attending a meeting no other county chairman had ever attended before also came about because he was familiarizing himself in all aspects of what goes on in this county.
I see nothing wrong with him sitting in on any county meeting and listening which is what he admits he did, sit and listen. But the News-Journal saw it as an opportunity to try and make it look like he and Mr. Frederick and Mr. Wilson had done something wrong.
The Daytona newspaper quoted ad authority members as being upset, but when they met for the first time since the News-Journal stories were published not a single member said anything critical.
The News-Journal can't bring itself to identifying Headline Surfer as an internet newspaper, instead calling it a “news and opinion website" as if to dismiss it as not much of anything at all. All they have tried to do is get in the way of Headline Surfer financing opportunities in hopes of financially breaking the award-winning internet newspaper.
The News-Journal can't bring itself to identifying Headline Surfer as an internet newspaper, instead calling it a “news and opinion website" as if to dismiss it as not much of anything at all. All they have tried to do is get in the way of Headline Surfer financing opportunities in hopes of financially breaking the award-winning internet newspaper.
Why are they so afraid of Mr. Frederick and his truth-telling internet medium?
Could it be they really don't have any reporters who are nearly as good at reporting the news as Mr. Frederick?
Could it be they are afraid that where there's one contract he gets, there will be others?
They try to say he is negative and his columns denigrate New Smyrna Beach. If you go back and read the columns he can back up every accusation and is only pointing out the corruption in the area in which he lives. That, after all, is what a newspaper should be doing and not kowtowing to the rich and influential.
The public should be aware of just how much taxpayer money is raked in by the News-Journal, which affects what they print and how they spin things. Why do you think you see so many articles about Embry Riddle, Daytona State College, Chambers of Commerce and Ad authorities, the Speedway and so many others who are in “power” in Volusia County and actually think they run the local world? That most of them are big-time advertisers for the News-Journal says it all.
The public should be aware of just how much taxpayer money is raked in by the News-Journal, which affects what they print and how they spin things. Why do you think you see so many articles about Embry Riddle, Daytona State College, Chambers of Commerce and Ad authorities, the Speedway and so many others who are in “power” in Volusia County and actually think they run the local world? That most of them are big-time advertisers for the News-Journal says it all.
Headline Surfer has been outing them since its inception and they don’t like their butts hanging out like that so they are doing their darndest to drive Mr. Frederick into the ground by denying him advertisers, keeping press releases from him to make it look like he is not up with the news. But somehow he always manages to beat them to the story anyway. He has foiled them every way they turn and they are getting more and more vicious.
Mayor Adam Barringer tried befriending Mr. Frederick and writing a blog for the paper, but quickly found out that the internet publisher will not be intimidated nor will he play by the mayor’s rules.
The mayor stopped writing his blog and has been doing everything he can behind the scenes to ruin the only internet newspaper here in Volusia County since Mr. Frederick reported on his ongoing multiple ethics investigations while trying to make himself look put upon by Frederick showing him for what he is.
It's time for this county to recognize the good work being done by this award-winning online newspaper and share advertising resources with it instead of giving everything to the News-Journal.
You as a community should be proud that Headline Surfer is being read all over the world for free when the News-Journal charges for its online content which many less people read. Come on people. Let’s get behind Frederick and show him we appreciate what he does on a limited budget pretty much by himself.