Not better late than never

One of the things we noticed when Joe Manchin became governor was that we began receiving press releases from the governor's office too late to print them in the newspaper. We understood that he was gearing his announcements to the daily press in Charleston, Huntington, Fairmont and other cities. But now the trend seems to have spread to other politicians.

We've been getting a bunch of news releases that came after we published on Wednesday, about events that will take place before our next issue. Among them were the governor's remarks about observing West Virginia Day and word of a State Public Service Commission training session for truckers, a program at Blackwater Falls State Park, and U.S. Senator Robert Byrd's dedication of the new Coast Guard Center in Martinsburg. The list could go on and on.

Of course, none of these events really affects anyone's life very much, but it's certainly a waste of time and money to send out material that will never be used by most of the state's newspapers.

For the record, there are only about 20 daily newspapers in this largely rural state, but there are almost 60 weeklies and nearly all of them have a schedule something like The Morgan Messenger's. Anyone who really cares about reaching West Virginians would do well to pay attention to those weekly deadlines.