Coming Home …

Well, here we are again.

Welcome to Muddy River News. I’m Bob Gough, the general manager and a partner of Muddy River News LLC. The company was officially formed in March, but I’ve been kicking around the idea of a local, multi-platform news venture for a while now. 

Many of our readers already know me, but for those of you who don’t, I’ve been a reporter, editor, director, manager, elected official, public information officer and chief strategist … in both public and private sectors. I’ve worn so many hats that my hair is gone (actually, that probably was heredity). 

But it’s time to come home. It’s time to finish my professional career the way I started it — in a newsroom, but one without clouds of smoke or cigarette-stained ceiling tiles. (Yes kids, once upon a time, people smoked in newsrooms. There also was drinking, although that may still take place from time to time.) There is no printing press, no 3/4-inch videotape to edit and no typewriters. 

My roots are in news. In journalism. In information. In media.  Whatever you want to call it. I’m home. 

It is a different world today than when I left the University of Missouri J-School in 1989, and it’s even different from when I founded the area’s first online-only news outlet in 2008 that perhaps was a bit ahead of its time.  

Today’s media landscape is unreal. Big companies are gobbling up small-town newspapers, television stations and radio stations. Ask for a tour of one of them sometime, and you’ll see several empty desks and rooms in once thriving newsrooms. 

Social media and the Internet haven’t helped the cause of the legacy media companies, as only a handful own stations in the more than 200 U.S. media markets. Hometown news has become a novelty. 

Muddy River News wants to bring back the emphasis of hometown coverage. We want people to know what is going on in Hannibal and Quincy and the surrounding 10 counties. I’ve lived in this area for all but the four years I was in Columbia, Mo., which isn’t that far away. 

I wrote for my hometown newspaper in high school, then went on to broadcast games on local radio stations and later anchored news, weather and sports on local television stations. 

I’ve met presidents and covered floods, fires, natural disasters and all sorts of news. Now this venture starts as this country comes out of national pandemic (fingers crossed).

My partners are Jim Rapp, a Quincy attorney, and Mike Kinscherff, an area banker. I had a business plan in my back pocket, and they asked me about it after it became clear the local media landscape was about to change. Other folks also reached out. Never more than a few days went by when someone didn’t ask me when I was going to start doing this again (or as one of my old college professors used to say, “get back in the game”).

I believe we three partners are doing this for the right reason — to fill a void. Local news and community journalism must continue to exist. That’s the reason for our slogan and our vision: “Our Home. Our News.”

Muddy River News is going to start small, but plans call for it to grow quickly — and it will with your readership. 

News, opinions, a marketplace, podcasts and probably, in the not-too-distant future, sports. 

We will have people in each county who can send us story ideas and news happenings. They can even write about some of those ideas, and we’ll publish them. We even might pay for some of them. 🙂 

We will be fair. We will have news and opinion. If you don’t like the opinion, read the news. Our news will be straight-forward and factual. We welcome the views of others … but not ad hominem attacks (or gaslighting, pick your poison).

I believe in fairness of media coverage. I believe in giving someone a chance to explain what happened in any scenario. I believe we all need to be willing to face questions, especially our public officials.  I believe in second chances.  I believe in recognizing success and achievement.  I believe that the media truly should be the “Fourth Estate” and work to frame and inform on issues facing our area.

Muddy River News will be a fully-functioning multi-platform news operation. Writing, video and audio. We will do our best to cover what we can, and as our staff grows, we will cover more. 

We want this to be interactive, and we will be responsive. Let us know what you think. 

Our discourse will be civil. You might not like the governor of Illinois, but his waistline isn’t a topic worth discussing when we’re reviewing his policies. Just back up your points. We can disagree without being disagreeable. We can be agreeable without being sycophantic (or, more conversationally, an “ass-kisser”).

I hope you like what we’re trying to accomplish. Please reach out if you have any opinions or ideas. I’m easy to find. 

J. Robert Gough

Publisher/General Manager/Partner

Muddy River News LLC

bgough@muddyrivernews.com