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Transparency a worthy goal for local governments, school boards

Power corrupts. Most people have likely heard that phrase — as well as its attendant (absolute power corrupts absolutely). Relatively few, however, have seen the consequences of it first-hand. Power can take well-meaning, upstanding citizens and convince them that they can do great and terrible things. It can guide people down a twisted path one hesitant step at a time, whispering the entire time that, well, surely nobody would care about this one trivial ill deed. We think it is fair to say that while many local governments and school boards have their own brushes with ...

Yes, we’re biased; but not in the way you think

People love whipping out accusations of bias on social media. Curiously, it’s frequently that we are liberal or left-leaning — which is interesting to us because we also get phone calls accusing us of conservative bias. To us, this is a sign that we are doing things correctly. If everyone is mad at us, across the ideological spectrum, then, frankly, we are doing our jobs and telling people what they need to hear — the news — as opposed to what they want to hear. However, with how things have been lately, we want to confess that we do, in fact, have some biases. For one, we ...

Read beyond the headlines

One of the most eternal struggles we face as a newspaper is getting people to get past headlines. This is not a recent phenomenon, though we would be lying if we ignored the impact social media has had on it. For print journalism especially, we cannot fully express every detail you need to know on a subject in a headline — let alone a condensed headline that must fit in a somewhat reasonable manner on a physical layout. This happens incessantly. It happens with national stories. It happens with state-wide stories. It happens, most frustratingly, with local stories. We have noted ...

The ‘luck’ of the Irish

Happy St. Patty’s Day! While many of you are presumably going to be celebrating this evening reveling in the fine Irish tradition of bad alcohol and good company, we wanted to take the moment to remind — or educate — that the supposed luck of the Irish was not originally a good thing. There are a number of apocryphal tales about Irish luck — it is doubtful that the stereotype has any specific origin provable with modern techniques. But the supposed luck of the Irish is commonly associated with jokes such as, “well, they’re lucky to be alive!” or considered in light of ...

Good news in good supply in Lock Haven

While the outside world has been suffering through strife and struggle, area officials and residents have been working tirelessly to improve the quality of life in our rural bubble, and we would like to call extra attention to some of those benefits. Perhaps the most visible recent improvement is the expansion of the benches in Lock Haven, the first of which was installed in 2024 in front of Downtown Lock Haven Inc. — an organization whose purpose is to bring folks near and far to the central business district to support local shops. Now, 26 more will join that first installation, ...

Progress is inspiring to us, and we hope you as well

Every year at the start of March, The Express runs our Progress sections: four days (now stretching to five!) where we work with a wide range of local advertisers to share their stories with you. For some businesses, it’s their anniversary. Others are announcing themselves in the section for the first time, and still others are many-year veterans of the section who use the space to explain the changes, growth and new products that their businesses now offer. It’s a celebration of local business seen on a once-in-a-year scale. Of course, not every business in the area ...