I have written this column dozens of times in my mind and put it on paper once.

I'm still not convinced it's the right column to write. At this point, without checking the version history, it has gone through numerous revisions and I'm still not convinced it's the right column to write but I'm doing it anyway.

I am speaking of a canned editorial which runs periodically on another local website touting it as the number one website in what I these days refer to as the Roanoke River Low Country.

I would never be as bold to say rrspin.com is the number one website in the area but I would dare say it's right up there with the self-professed number one website.

The point is, who cares who has the number one website in the area. It's not going to make me back down from what I'm doing and it certainly shouldn't stop them from doing what they're doing.

I was almost going to say let's settle this by laying the cards of analytics on the table but I see no need to do that because it doesn't really matter.

I have tried in the past to extend the olive branch and will, once a year during National Newspaper Week, continue to do so although it has not been and probably won't be accepted.

That said, I know most of you must think me crazy to even do such a thing and perhaps it's time to move on and forget it, probably the bridge has been burned beyond recognition because of my ghost, the perceived bad ghost who questioned things, questioned management decisions and was the first to fight for or against a certain point.

The good ghost in me still haunts that place, the well-placed sources, the long history in the community and, forgive me for sounding boastful, perhaps the pretty good reputation I've established over the years.

I guess my point is there is room for both of us. I believe Dick Kern proved that when he was running the Roanoke Valley Journal.

I still believe in the power of newspapers and have aligned myself with one of the best in the area, Ahoskie's Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.

I also believe in the power of the Internet, maybe a little more than I believe in the power of rising newsprint costs, which have caused newspapers to shrink in size and left many journalists jobless.

If you take rrspin.com at its simplest roots, it is a newspaper, it is me doing what I have always done. That's why some days you get more news and some days you get less.

There are things I need to improve on and things I might should concentrate less on, but when I look at the number of hits on crime stories there's no way I can back off that but, like Mr. Kern did, maybe put a little more effort into finding the good news, too.

As I've told people, this is not about being first, it is about offering a choice of news that is local only. I doubt many of you would care if I offered state, national or world news. Because of the web, you have everything from CNN, Reuters, Fox, the N&O, WRAL and plenty of other state and national papers and telvision stations right at your fingertips.

I made sure during the redesign that rrspin.com had some newspaper features like crosswords and sudoko as well as a few others the mastermind of the redesign, Curry Roberts, of the Computer Guy and Company, put on here. I don't check the stats of that page like I should because it was just put on as a bonus.

I just wanted to make sure news and opinion were accounted for and I will say this, that I believe the rrspin.com opinion page is salient and to the point, not aiming to straddle the fence but to clearly state what I believe in and don't believe in. That's why you don't see an editorial or column every day.

We can't get all the funeral homes onboard with obits, so we run what's given to us for free, a throwback to the days when newspaper used the obit page as a public service and not an income generator.

While I would love to devote more coverage to it, we couldn't get our agreements for full time sports coverage right this year. Don't give up on that.

No, rrspin.com is far from perfect and I have no desire to get into weddings and engagements so I all can continue to offer is coverage of Weldon, Roanoke Rapids and Halifax County, simply local news, with no bells or whistles, just an easy to follow website.

As we work on the third year, I consider this a critical year for this website and its future, as I will be looking at its direction. Judging from the latest analytics I can tell you I'm quite pleased.

In the end this column isn't really where I wanted it to go and has little to do with National Newspaper Week or, perhaps in my effort to tread softly and not create a war, it has all to do with National Newspaper Week because, as I said in the first column marking the week, ink is in my blood.

So, I think it matters not who's got the number one website in the area, and who has the bells and whistles. I think I'll just leave it up to you, the readers, to decide, and keep on doing what I'm doing, which is all any of us can do — Lance Martin