Your stats are booming! THE DUMBARTON DEMOCRAT is getting lots of ON-LINE traffic
Bill Heaney, editor of The Democrat.
The welcome message in the headline above that our readership keeps increasing exponentially came into The Dumbarton Democrat office this morning from WordPress, the IT company, whose system we use for our 21st century online newspaper. The Democrat comes to our readers FREE of charge every day of the week, 24/7 and includes Sundays. The newspaper is locally owned and edited and is independent of any political party, outside influence or financial support. We supply a news and features service for local people, by local people who are supported by a team of citizen journalists, photographers and contributors. We give advertising space FREE to community based groups for events and meetings and other good causes.
We are three-time winners of the Scottish Press Award for Weekly Newspaper Journalist of the Year, Life Members of the National Union of Journalists and Bill Heaney, our editor is an Editor Emeritus of the Society of Editors of the UK. Despite efforts to obstruct us doing our job as journalists covering local government according to custom and practice and abiding by the traditions attached to press freedom, our digital newspaper is booming while traditional weekly newspapers, none of which is any longer based in Dumbarton or Helensburgh, are haemorrhaging sales and rapidly losing readership. We will not be gagged or threatened by the curmudgeons of the SNP or West Dunbartonshire Council – or anyone else for that matter. Thanks for reading The Democrat. We are nothing without our readership, just as public bodies and politicians are nothing without the electorate. It is our intention to keep reminding them that we are democracy which refuses to be ruled without the consent of the people, hence our slogan, Publish and be Damned.