Inking his support for Issue 3, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette senior editor Rex Nelson complained in a recent column that there is no Arkadelphia-based newspaper and no local radio. “Imagine that: a two-college town that’s a news desert,” he observed.
Nelson — a native Arkadelphian who now calls Little Rock home — reminisced about the days of old, when his hometown had both a weekly and a daily newspaper in addition to two locally owned radio stations.
We’ve got news for Mr. Nelson: This “desert” had 1.1 million views last month, according to analytics for our social media page and the website you’re currently reading for news.
When Rex is in town to call football games and talk about the good old days, we wonder if he wanders into any local convenience stations, where it’s hard to miss a copy of the weekly Southern Standard. Sure, the county newspaper of record is based in Amity — but at least its publisher isn’t calling shots from Little Rock.
To call Arkadelphia a news desert is an assault on two locally owned news outlets. Here at arkadelphian.com we provide free local news, available 24/7. Because somebody’s got to water this place.
How local media (or the lack thereof) got roped into an argument for Issue 3 is beyond us. According to Rex Nelson and other like-minded folks, its passage is the fix-all miracle drug for communities like Arkadelphia that are drying up as people like Rex leave for bigger, better opportunities in Little Rock or Northwest Arkansas.
Joel Phelps is publisher of arkadelphian.com, an online news outlet that produces local content for the greater Arkadelphia community. At the time of this writing it had an archive of more than 9,100 articles, served 20 advertising clients, and had amassed over 14,000 Facebook followers in a city of 10,000 residents.