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Carter Johnson, the son of Gene Johnson (the owner of Press Publications, which owns the Sentinel and twelve other newspapers), is the new editor and publisher of the Burnett County Sentinel.

I know Carter from the time I spent working for the Sentinel and from what I know of him he is a high energy, go-getter type and is passionate about the newspaper business. I wish him nothing but success with the Sentinel and Press Publications.

He wrote an article about the shake up at the Sentinel (you can find it on page 4A of Wednesday, Dec. 17 2008 edition. As of this post it has not been made available online). In it he outlined that it was a difficult decision to let Byron Higgin (pictured) go, but that it was necessary to keep the Sentinel alive, which I have no doubt is true. Recently the Sentinel decided to shrink the physical size of the paper used to cut costs and I know other staff was cut or consolidated in the past.

I find it a little strange that in the article Carter didn’t offer more of a tribute to Byron, the long-time editor and publisher of the Sentinel. Maybe he has something planned for the next issue. I think it would be a good idea to feature some of the work that Byron did along with his accomplishments. I would think advertisers would be excited to wish Byron farewell and show their gratitude towards him.

I wish Johnson would have given us a vision to what he wants the paper to be, where he wants it to go and how he’s going to accomplish it. He only gave general thoughts and emphasized that the community needs to help with the process. Hopefully he does that in future issues, as well.

I am not sure where the Sentinel is heading. The outlook doesn’t look good for the industry or the paper itself, at least in it’s current form. The Sentinel has beefed up it’s online content and presence, which is the key element in staying viable in this day of instant gratification and fast-paced society.