BlogPeoria site beats Journal Star on Delta story by ONE MONTH

David Jordan reported this on Peoria Station on June 30:

PEORIA - Atlantic Southeast Airlines dba Delta Connection will drop its nonstop service between Peoria and Atlanta on September 1. The airline’s online schedules show two daily roundtrips through July, then one through August. Delta Connection had reduced Peoria service to just one daily roundtrip last fall, leading to speculation that service would soon end altogether, but then restored a second daily flight in March.

The Peoria Journal Star placed this article on it's website today, Aug. 3, more than one month after it was broken on a BlogPeoria.com site:

Delta Airlines will cut its local service to Atlanta, Ga., at the end of this month.

"Effective in September, we will be suspending service between Atlanta and Peoria as part of our continuing effort to match capacity and demand," company spokeswoman Susan Elliott confirmed Monday.

Since Atlanta is a major hub for air travelers, the direct flights will be missed, particularly by those who promote the central Illinois economy.

So what took so long? Notice that Mr. Jordan -- a citizen journalist with some expertise in transportation issues -- looked at the evidence in front of his eyes and wrote what he knew. The Journal Star waited until they had comments from an offocial spokesperson. In other words, Peoria's one and only newspaper of record didn't define the news as news until someone official went on the record.

That's called "objective" journalism and that's why newspapers are dying.

If you want to know what's happening at the Peoria airport as soon as possible, I suggest you read Peoria Station regularly. Wait for the Journal Star, and you might find yourself scrambling to make a connection.


This story was cross posted to Peoria Pundit.