We have been doing our website for almost five years now — long enough that when you add total years of experience, it accounts for some 20 years covering issues mainly in Roanoke Rapids.
That we are a new news format in Roanoke Rapids, don't dismiss us as renegade bloggers, citizen journalists or some Johnny Come Lately organization designed to cause trouble.
We write this because at Tuesday night's city council we were almost dismissed when we raised our hand to question a council decision to go into closed session to continue discussion of making the Main Street manager a city position.
(This is the last of a two-part editorial series on Tuesday nigh's city council meeting)
Our hand-raising was described as a concern being raised from the public when rrspin.com, as a legitimate news organization, has publicly attempted to protect the sanctity of open meeting laws more than the city's established newspaper has.
We believe in the nearly five years we have been in existence we have grown in coverage, grown in readership and grown in popularity, being the first news organization in Roanoke Rapids to heavily utilize social networking and heavily fight for the public's right for information during this time.
Twice now, we have been told we were dead wrong on our rationale for objecting to the closed session and this afternoon emailed a letter to city staff explaining our decision to challenge the closed session.
As of this writing City Manager Joseph Scherer has requested of the city attorney an explanation for the reason and also a statement to assure us we are viewed as a legitimate news organization in Roanoke Rapids.
For that response, we are grateful, and we await a more detailed response from the city attorney, although we vehemently continue to stand by our objection to the closed meeting.
While we have our detractors, we have our supporters, and we endure the slings and arrows of those who believe some of our editorials are complete balderdash.
We believe we do what any legitimate news organization does — criticize when it's warranted, praise when it's needed.
We stand by our editorials, not only for their clarity and impact, but their quality as being the best opinion pieces in the city and Halifax County whether you agree or disagree with them.
And please realize this, this wasn't the first time we objected to a closed session — in fact we stand 0 for 3 on our challenges — and it certainly won't be our last when we think the situation is warranted.
We say this because this is what legitimate news agencies do, be they printed out on a News King Web Press or published using a content management system — Editor
