Previous Owner Criticizes Durham H-S

For generations during which it was a respected community newspaper, the Durham Herald Sun was owned by members of the Rollins family, most of whom lived in Durham.

It 2005 the family completed the sale of the H-S to Paxton Media Group which put the current editor, Bob Ashley, in charge.

Since Ashley took over the H-S's circulation, advertising revenue and news reporting and editorializing have all plummeted.

Today, in a letter to the H-S, a member of the Rollins family, Steed Jr, whose dad was for many year its publisher, gave readers a very clear idea of what he thinks has happened to the H-S.

Most of you will quickly surmise Rollins' letter is about a lot more than reporting on a Duke basketball game.

I plan a follow-up post that will offer more background concerning Rollins' letter. For now I'll just put it out there.
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To the editor:

It was very disappointing to open The Herald-Sun on Thursday and discover that the Duke-Marquette men's basketball final was missing. Not so in my copy of the N&O.

It is hard to be taken seriously as Durham's newspaper if you can't get the Duke score in the paper.

Somebody in charge made the conscious decision not to update the front page or the sports page with either a late score or the AP story during the press-run.

It's bad enough that you depend on the AP to write your story, at least take the effort to put it in the newspaper.

Your readers and your advertisers deserve better on one of your most profitable advertising days of the year.

Steed Rollins Jr.
Durham
November 25, 2007