Why I Cancelled My Subscription To The Swampscott Reporter

It is with a heavy heart, but also a clear obligation to my family and community, that I can no longer in good conscience subscribe to The Swampscott Reporter.

I have been reading The Reporter since 1969, appeared in its pages myself a few times, and had the good fortune also to read about my children there over the many years. It's been the family paper for 44 years.

After 44 years, though, I have been deeply disappointed what has become of the paper under Ms Powell’s tenure. I don't look to The Reporter for Pulitzer journalism (lthough Pulitzer level journalism should be a goal of any newspaper); I look to it for an unbiased lens on what's going on in Swampscott. I can forgive some of the slant the paper has against Swampscott as a whole. I can forgive some of the embarrassing headlines ("Sayonara Swampscott" 3/26/13). I can ignore some of the factual inaccuracies.

But when the entire front page, above the fold, is given to a thinly-disguised editorial endorsement of a particular candidate less than two weeks before an election ("Landen: I advocated for kids" 4/18/13), your local editor and the editors who should be supervising her have done more than fail their journalistic obligation to separate news from opinion, theyhave failed their readers. You all have failed the people of Swampscott.

I will miss following my kids' progress in your pages. I will miss browsing the real estate section and sharing it with friends looking to move here. I will miss what's left of the once vibrant local letters to the editor section.

I will not miss watching what's become of a once-loved newspaper.

Michael McClung
64 Fuller Avenue
Swampscott

Copies of this statement have been forwarded to Peter Newton, Kirk Davis, and Marlene Switzer, executives at Gatehouse Media, as well as to The Reporter's largest advertisers.

In full disclosure, I served on the Swampscott Finance Committee from 2007 through 2012, the last three years as its chairman. In that capacity, I also served on the Town Building Study/Oversight Committees. My wife, Jacqueline Kinney, served on the Swampscott School Committee from 2009-2012, the last two years as its chair.