by Scott Miller

Is there anyway you can change up the layout from a vertical scroll to more like the frontpage of a daily newspaper?
Do you do news stories in depth yourself or rely on contributors?
Now that you are off the council will you be more critical of town business and town affairs?
Classifieds could be more organized into categories making it more easy to find what you are looking for. ie Rentals, items for sale, jobs etc.

by Publisher

We could but at the risk of displeasing the vast majority of readers used to the format. You are not the first to suggest that changes could be made to our format. ODN has engaged a WordPress consultant who is working on the back end of the site. No pun intended but she is getting rid of very old comments and classified ads etc. She has suggested a number of changes to format and we are considering these. Not sure why you would suggest ODN look like a newspaper when IT IS NOT.

All news is edit by me, in that, I am responsible for news content. Roy Wood is a seasoned reporter who covers Oliver Town Council on a contract basis. I attend some other meetings including RDOS, APC, Parks and School Board when an agenda item is of interest. A lot of items come from the internet, government services, news photos, and other cooperating news services: Castanet, Black Press Digital, Global Okanagan. Those services use my photographs and story info when required by them.

If you see the poll today – it indicates a perception of bias on ODN. Everyone is entitled to their opinions including me but most if not all legitimate stories are not biased in my opinion. I think all views and sides are covered fairly. I think there are a few subjects I am interested in and comment on often – National Park and misinformation about the word DROUGHT are two that come to mind.  Will I take a harder line with council info – maybe – time will tell. It will be a slow process. I can say decisions by council are made in a democracy where YOU elect the leaders and they vote on issues. Generally it works well but there are always issues where some(many) may differ on their idea of how to solve a problem. Most of you will never run for office, Most of you would make exactly the same decisions.

Classifieds are FREE. Why do them? They help with the readership for sure. But a lot of time cannot be spent on this section of ODN. It’s free, It’s time consuming and the time of the publisher is better spent – increasing content for readers and increasing revenue to ensure that Oliver Daily News is still around here.

Glad to say – its not a fly by night operation. Started in the fall of 2010 – I think of it as 8 years, could be 7 years but feels like way more than that.

Thank you Scott for the questions.