To Our Readership

We are the oldest newspaper in S.C. and we have battled so many times, over 182 years, to stay alive — sometimes of our own doing, other times the “undoing” coming from the outside.  Vicissitudes of this nature tend to keep one strong.

This newspaper stands for the right of a President to speak his mind, as wells as the right of a free press to print facts that purport the truth. However, this President has lowered the bar on civility in our Nation, for the battle of words now leads to low morale from a punishing bombardment of media attacks from “on high” that purports an assumption that if the press differs with the leadership “on high”, it is the “enemy” of the people. This unsupported assumption, coupled with the newsprint tariffs and the downward spiral of the printed paper business since the digital trend, addressed in our August 8 edition, is proving disastrous and dismaying.

We are dismayed and join the newspaper force, as inspired by the Boston Globe’schallenge. The Edgefield Advertiserhas stood for the truth and the news of our beloved community for over 182 years …We acknowledge in our editorial columns all voices and all sides, and we give opportunities for all to speak. We stand with the Globeand every newspaper in USA joining in. Look to your other relied upon newspapers here in SC & CSRA and around the country today, August 16, for the same message …and look to our masthead at the top of every front page of The Edgefield Advertisersince 1836 and know our inspiration has out lasted many: We will cling to the pillars of our liberties and if it must fall we will perish amidst the ruins.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.Thomas Jefferson