If there is one thing NSBNews.net enjoys in providing news coverage here in New Smyrna Beach, it's our independence from municipal government. Admittedly, we were perturbed that the city's Community Redevelopment Agency has given away close to a half million dollars in taxpayer money to several private community groups over the last three-plus years for events including funding for advertising.
Since NSBNews.net was launched in April 2008, none of these groups in the CRA district has accepted our overtures to advertise their events even though we cover nearly all of these events exclusively. The CRA has taken the position that it is the end result that matters: that the merchants are happy. But are they? And there is a price to pay for the print media outlets that depend on taxpayer money to survive: The reporting is drivel.
These weeklies, none of which are even based in New Smyrna Beach, are beholden to those private community leaders and the CRA. The CRA even has a paid consultant whose job includes writing "press releases" and taking photos on businesses that these media outlets are then expected to publish which makes the merchants happy.
You won't read anything close to "real news" in these so-called publications because they are beholden to the taxpayer-funded advertising. These news outlets even shamelessly promote themselves as "sponsors" of events, giving the reader an impression either they or merchants paid for ads, when in fact, that funding is borne by the taxpayers.
NSBNews.net will outline in a series of stories how the advertising mechanism works and how news gets lost in translation.
For three-plus years, NSBNews.net has relied on its own financing and the private small businesses that do enjoy plenty of exposure because of our high readership and viewership with our multi-media format of stories, photos and videos as well as our extensive social media.
NSBNews.net is continuing to reshape and upgrade its online capabilities to provide even more content as well as honest to goodness daily updates of its proven readership through Google Analytics.
NSBNews.net is second only to the Daytona Beach News-Journal among Volusia County-based media. All of our content is picked up immediately by Google News directories and placed at or near the top of the search engines.
And because we have developed the single largest social media network on Facebook in Volusia County -- private or public -- NSBNews.net is read by people across Central Florida in ever-increasing numbers.
The Volusia County-based local weekly print media outlets and magazines are wholly reliant on taxpayer supported CRAs to survive. The CRA funding, though, becomes an albatross around their necks. They can't write news that really matters because of their ties to these private community groups that receive tens of thousands of dollars in CRA money.
We'll have much more on this in our upcoming NSBNews.net investigative series: Show Me The Money: New Smyrna Beach CRA. We'll detail the lack of oversight, the lack of detailed receipts for use of taxpayer money and other relevant issues.
Like everyone else in this downtrodden economy, we are struggling, but we have our own financing and new advertisers are coming on board. Peter Mallory and I made a commitment when we started Florida's first 24/7 exclusively online newspaper that we would not sell out our journalism for the sake of advertising.
Where has the CRA advertising really gotten these other newspapers? NSBNews.net provides relevant breaking news and investigative reports. They provide drivel and grip-and-grin photos.
NSBNews.net is based here in New Smyrna Beach, the only newspaper within the city. We're not packing up and leaving town like the News-Journal and the Observer. We don't have to hide behind a post office box to identify ourselves while holing up in a nearby community.
NSBNews.net is free and always will be. You want to know what's happening in the world, we bring you that through our video feeds from the Associated Press, the New York Post and Bloomberg Business News.
When it comes to local and even hyper local, NSBNews.net brings the news to you on your desktop, laptop, cellphone, iPad, iPod, etc. With nearly 800 videos in our catalogue, we have a living history of news in and around New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater and Oak Hill.
You want to know who got pulled over, who spent a night in jail, who got sued or how the Cudas football squad did at home, you come to us.
You want drivel, you go to the weeklies, the ones that are piled in canisters and in hotel lobbies that few read because it's drivel -- pure and simple.