From the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Public Witness
For a year now, Palestinians in Gaza have been creatively and bravely protesting for their freedom by marching towards the fence with Israel to demand an end to the blockade of Gaza and respect for their rights.  In response, Israel has met unarmed civilians with live sniper-fire, killing over 200 and injuring tens of thousands, including paramedics, journalists, children, and people with disabilities. In total, 45 children have been killed.  Click Here to Contact Congress.
 

A newspaper reporter friend told me that his paper's coverage policies were determined by the editor's interests rather than the readers' interests.

That could be a reason why newspapers are losing audience these days.

Dispatch editor Alan Miller demonstrated this quirk of leadership in the April 14 edition when he wrote about his father's restoration of a barn in Holmes County and included a picture.

That's 85 miles northeast of Columbus and way out of the Dispatch coverage area.

No other Dispatch journalist could have done it. Only the editor.

I wonder if it signals that Miller is nearing retirement. After four years of cost-cutting and dancing to the GateHouse corporate tune, Miller may be ready for the family farm, so to speak.

Spectrum News 1 Quotes Yours Truly, Columbus Free Press

A Coalition to #FreeMasonique is calling for a National Week of Action to draw attention to Masonique Saunders and has begun a calling campaign to Ron O’Brien asking him to drop the charges against her.Masonique has been sitting in Columbus’ juvenile jail since December, after being charged with aggravated robbery and felony murder, and is awaiting a May 9 court date. She spent her 17th birthday, March 18, in jail. Masonique’s mother is struggling to help her and to pay legal bills.

In December 2018, a Columbus police officer shot and killed Julius Tate Jr., a 16-year-old Black boy, during a sting operation, claiming he had a gun. The police then pinned their murder on Masonique Saunders, Tate’s girlfriend, on the premise she was party to a felony happening during the murder. Read more in the Free Press May article by Sarah Mamo: “A sting, a police murder and a cover-up.”

Columbus’ original beatnik and prime hippie #1 Charlie Einhorn passed into the cosmos in April 2019. So central was Charlie to Columbus’ budding counterculture of the 1960s is that the first headshop took its name from his musical instrument, Charlie’s Guitar. His good friend and co-conspirator Stan Bobrof told the Free Press Charlie’s Guitar was “where it’s at.” Charlie is now drinking coffee and reminiscing with Stan in paradise.

One of the most interesting and unknown aspects of Charlie’s life was his escape from the holocaust and journey to Belgium and eventually the United States. He later relished teaching new immigrants English as a Second Language, because he could relate from his own experiences.

The Freep itself owes a huge debt to Charlie Einhorn and his wife Lynn Stan for the uncountable hours they put in – way into night laying out the paper in the 1990s. Charlie moved the Free Press out of the paste-up stone ages into the desktop publishing era. His creative ideas for the cover were some of the best in Freep history.