Declaration of independence

The Daily Record took great strides Sunday to prove its independence from the Morning News.
To provide the context, we provide a snippet from a Nov. 1 editorial running in all four editions:

Sometimes the members of this choir will each sing his own tune. That will make things interesting. The differences among us are as much a part of this region’s strength as the cooperation. When everybody thinks the same way, nobody’s thinking, the wise heads say. Well, that has never been a problem around here.

With that being said, we pick up Sunday's paper. Page one features a story Capt. John Vanlandingham winning the Silver Star. I'm sure he deserved it, and it's a fantastic story, written by Little Rock-based Lewis Delavan, but his only connection to northwest Arkansas is that he lives close to Russellville, where Rogers Mayor Steve Womack grew up. There are those who may think it's an important enough accomplishment that it should be told everywhere in the state, but I thought that was the reason your Morning News and Daily Record and Northwest Arkansas Times are wrapped around the Democrat Gazette. On the front page of the local dailies, it's a waste of space and of the reporters on staff.
But what I found most telling and most disturbing about the post-merger newspapers is the front-page commentary below the fold by none other than Warren Stephens, who shares a name with Stephens Media by no coincidence.
Stephens' commentary was largely harmless, except for the implied implications on local news. He begins his message to readers with this:

To our readers:

The idea for this series originated one afternoon when talking to one of my associates.

This one sentence, as simple as it is, shows that the largest influence upon editorial comment does not come from within the coverage area, leaving those no closer than Little Rock dictating what content is best for Benton and Washington counties.
But enjoy your increased local coverage, folks.

On a side note, the Morning News certainly hasn't learned the lesson that came so painful to the Daily Record. It's pointless to post a link (if it exists, you'll be forced to pay extra for the archived story), but two veterans have become must less visible when it turned out their extensive military honors were, at best, fiction and, at worst, stolen from those who earned them. I won't name their names in the hopes that they've learned their lesson, but the orders in the Daily Record newsroom were to write stories about veterans only after receiving a copy of their official military records.