Publisher's Commentary
Clarion-Ledger articles on Delta hurt Delta, hurt Mississippi    What do you get when you cross a sports writer, an environmentalists and someone named after a Nintendo game?  Why an in-depth "expert" analysis of the Delta by the Clarion-Ledger of course!
   Recently, Mississippi's largest daily newspaper, the Clarion-Ledger published  a series of articles on the Mississippi Delta. I was spellbound, intrigued, amused and angered by the series of articles.  Given an outstanding opportunity to break some new ground and extended the most in local cooperation, the paper  instead chose to revisit the same old tired, worn out, paternalistic (dare I say plantation like?) attitude. After reading the articles, let's see if I have this right:

• Gaming has changed the face of Tunica County leading to an 800% increase in the tax base and a 900% increase in sales tax collections.  (But this has not moved every single person off of the welfare roles so it really should be discounted.)
• Manufacturing employment is up 4% in the last 8 years for the region as a whole and this number does not reflect several new locations in the region.  - Manufacturing wages now exceed $1.0 billion (yet most of these locations have taken place in larger population centers in the Delta so they should be downplayed.)
• Delta schools are in horrible shape because we give all of our tax breaks to industry to locate here instead of our schools.  (For the record, it is illegal to exempt school taxes but let the facts get in the way of a good opinion!)
• Tourism has some potential if we would only stop our horrible dredging of rivers and flood control. Is this picture starting to get a bit clearer?
• We lack leadership and in fact really don't have any leaders.
• And, of course, agriculture is somehow responsible for these myriad ills since as a society we always have to have a politically correct whipping post.

   Is the Delta where it needs to be?  No.  We do have problems. Our unemployment rates are higher than the rest of the state and we must improve our educational levels to attract more and higher paying jobs.  And we have a lot of fine people and fine organizations working every day  to move our region forward.  What angers me the most is that this series of articles implies that these efforts are useless, fruitless and our future is "murky as the river" that defines the Delta.
  Maybe the esteemed Clarion-Ledger can help us here in this poor old ignorant Delta.  Exercise some of that leadership we are missing here and bring us some jobs.  After all, your parent company Gannett earned a profit of $1 billion 1 million last year. Certainly you all have the resources - why not make an investment in the Delta?
  We are absolutely in agreement that we have problems and we are absolutely committed to continuing to find solutions.
  Articles such as the ones that have just appeared in the Clarion-Ledger hurt us. Should a company that is considering a move to the Delta just happen to read these articles, there is no doubt that they will quickly look elsewhere thus hurting our recruiting efforts.
  The Clarion-Ledger should consider such things the next time they decide to write about the Delta. If the paper is truly interested in helping the Delta, why not publish a series of articles on the positive things that are taking place here.
  We need all of the help that we can get here.  The Clarion-Ledger could be a big help to us in many ways.  In fact, the Clarion-Ledger could be a big help to Mississippi if they chose to. Back