Desert Messenger

6 www.DesertMessenger.com August 16, 2023 DESERT MESSENGER Quartzsite's FREE Community Paper Proud to be a Quartzsite Licensed Business 928-916-4235 O� T��� - E���� T���! Founded by Walt Akin October 1, 2004 P�������� �� P���� R��� P��������� C�. P.O. Box 3185 Quartzsite, AZ 85359 NOW PUBLISHED ONCE/MONTH on the 3rd Wednesday of each month OWNER/EDITOR/PUBLISHER GRAPHIC DESIGN/ AP AR MARKETING EXECUTIVE/CLASSIFIEDS Shanana "Rain" Golden-Bear CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Starr BearCat NAME PLATE DESIGN Paul Winer www.DesertMessenger.com www.DesertMessengerOnline.com E-mail: Editor@DesertMessenger.com 2023-24 © Copyright All Rights Reserved Copyright 2013 Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Desert Messenger. LIKE US on Facebook.com/ DesertMessengerNews FOLLOW US on Twitter @QuartzsiteRain By Shanana "Rain" Golden-Bear QUARTZSITE ROCKS! EDITORIAL LETTERS TO EDITOR POLICY Desert Messenger encourages letters from its readers. Letters should be no longer than 300 words, and may be edited for grammar, content and length. OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THOSE OF THE DESERT MESSENGER. We invite you to not only see a problem, but search for the solution to share with the community, keeping the benefit of all in mind. Letters considered libelous, in poor taste, on a personal issue, mean spirited or dominated by Scripture quotes will not be published. Third party letters will not be accepted. To avoid confusion over people with common or similar names, writers must provide a full name and indicate the name they are known by. Writers must provide a full street address and phone number. Rvers can provide the location of park/BLM land, etc. Street addresses will not be published. Phone numbers are for verification only and will not be printed. Send letters to: Desert Messenger, P.O. Box 3185, Quartzsite, AZ 85359 or E-mail to: Editor@DesertMessenger.com 928-916-4235 Desert Messenger News celebrates 20 th year anniversary I'm often approached by someone who read an opinion article in a publication, thinking it was a news article. What's the difference? Well, when an article uses "I" or "believe" or "think", such as this article you are reading, it's an opinion piece. Also, as a general rule, news articles contains factual information report- ed by journalists. Most newspaper publishers don't want their readers to be confused about what is news and what is opinion. I am reminded when I signed up for an "early childhood develop- ment" class in college. The fi rst day of school, everyone explained why they were there; most were going to be teachers or pre-school staff, etc. But I was there because I was preg- nant and wanted to learn about my future child. Our fi rst assignment was to "Ob- serve" a toddler for 15 minutes and write a report describing the child's behavior that we "observed." I found a friend's child, observed her for the alloted time and turned in a wonder- ful report, or so I thought! I was real- ly shocked to learn I fl unked, but so did ALL of my classmates. It seems we all wrote what we "thought" the child was doing. We had jumped directly to interpretation and analy- sis, rather that just observing. After receiving further instruction about objectivity, we had to fi nd a differ- ent toddler and repeat the exercise. With a lot of effort, we learned how to analyze our own cultural biases and points of view that affect objec- tivity in observation, interpretation, and perspective taking. This is also how I approached the world of journalism. I hoped my skills were still pretty good at de- tecting fake news, so I recently took a quiz from Pew Research. I was pleased to see that I scored all 10 correctly! This stroke suvivor can still spot a fake! Can you? A news story reports the facts without the opinion of the report- er, writer, producer or presenter. It can contain attributed or quoted opinions of people interviewed. So a news story can contain opinion and tell a compelling story. But it should not include the opinion of the news- gatherer or the news organization. Desert Messenger News presents NEWS articles, which are accounts of events, an EDITORIAL (opin- ion piece written by the publisher), and COLUMNS or Commentaries, which are essays that present the opinion or perspective of someone with insight, usually a stakeholder or expert in the fi eld. When reading articles online or in any publication, challenge yourself to see what cat- egory they fall. If you want to test yourself, visit https://www.pe wre search.org/ quiz/news-statements-quiz/ "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." – Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quartzsite, AZ – Shanana Rain Golden-Bear, Publisher of Desert Messenger News, announced at the monthly Ladies Luncheon on Tues- day, August 1st that she will be re- tiring the print edition of the com- munity paper in May, 2024. She explained when she took over the 4-year old paper in 2008, she com- mitted to publishing the paper for only four more years. She said, "The number four is very sacred to me. Those four years went by, and I made commitment to an- other four years. Those four years went by again and another commit- ment was made. This year will be the completion of my fourth 4-year commitment and also happens to be the 20th anniversary!" The paper was founded in 2004 by Walt Akin, a plumber and Quartzsite Town council member, who later was appointed Mayor. The newspaper industry has faced signifi cant challenges in recent years due to the rise in printing costs, de- clines in print advertising and read- ers adopting digital news sources. In 2008, when Golden-Bear acquired the paper, it was only 12 pages, and there were a total of three Quartzsite papers available. Also back then, both the Blythe and Parker weekly news- papers actually covered Quartzsite news, but they cut back local cover- age many years ago. Golden-Bear said plans are in the works for readers to be able to ac- cess 20 years of past editions online at www.DesertMessenger.com. "I'm excited to share the past 20 years of Quartzsite history from the eyes of a small town publisher.I am open to possibilities and look forward to what the universe has in store for me!" Watch for lots of changes beginning with the September edition. Be sure to keep up to date by LIKING Desert Messenger News Facebook page.

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