Recent editorials from Georgia newspapers:
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Jan. 9
The Augusta Chronicle on the Georgia football’s loss in the national championship:
After one of Georgia’s most heartbreaking, backbreaking losses in its celebrated history, there is precious little consolation.
But it is there nonetheless.
The main positive takeaway from the devastating 26-23 overtime loss to SEC rival Alabama in the national championship is that, win or lose, the Bulldogs were going to come away from the game changed.
And despite the defeat, they appear to have come away better than we could have ever imagined.
Bowed, of course, but unbroken. The team’s seniors, especially, will carry this thrill ride of a 13-2 season with a deep sense of accomplishment, into pro football or any number of career paths. The heartache will follow them - but after the initial anguish, so will an abiding pride in what they accomplished.
Returning players will now - well, work overtime - to get on top. This experience has changed them, and they can’t be changed back.
It’s changed their program too. What they have done has left its mark.
“This season will change Georgia forever,” receiver Riley Ridley said afterward. “It’s been a while since we made it this far, and we just came up a little short tonight. But we’ll let this feeling right here drive us.”
“Georgia is back folks,” wrote Morgan Moriarty at SBNation.com.
Given that Georgia’s second-year Coach Kirby Smart studied under Alabama Coach Nick Saban for nine years, Moriarty adds that the Saban way, “is up and running at full speed at Georgia, and it’s here to stay.”
“Everybody respects Georgia now,” Georgia cornerback Deandre Baker says. “Even though we took an ’L’ tonight, everybody respects Georgia now.”
“Georgia falls short of national championship,” Moriarty’s headline read, “but a new standard has been set in Athens.”
And a fan base that could not possibly have loved the Dawgs more than it did, now does.
Online: http://chronicle.augusta.com/
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Jan. 10
The Valdosta Daily Times on those returning to work and school:
It has been said that to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose.
With a season of celebration behind us - from Christmas breaks to Bulldogs playing national championships late into the night - it is time to return to school, to work and to go about our daily routines.
For there is much to be done.
Today marks the end of the holidays for many people.
Most adults have returned to their jobs.
Schools re-opened last week and this week and students have returned to classes.
We have rung in a new year.
We cheered our Dawgs.
Now, it is time to make this year work.
Or more appropriately, it is time we get to work to make this year better.
The economic situation has improved in more recent times, but nothing is guaranteed. Gas prices have fallen. The job market is strengthened.
But nothing should be taken for granted.
So, we must work.
We must toil. We must educate ourselves. We must be ready to adapt. We must relearn the forgotten magic of striving. We must strive.
Strive to do more with less, strive to learn from our mistakes, strive to better understand the world at home and abroad.
For everything there is a season.
Now, is the season to work and strive.
We hope to benefit a bountiful harvest, but to reap these rewards, we must work.
Though maybe we should stress striving next week. After all, there’s the three-day weekend coming up with the Martin Luther King holiday Monday.
So, perhaps, next Tuesday is the time to strive. Nonetheless, the season to work is here.
Online: http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/
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Jan. 9
The Brunswick News on legislators, including U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, requesting consideration of sanctions over a probe into Canadian producers of paper used in newsprint:
Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, and a small group of legislators in Washington appear to be going to bat for small-town, community newspapers and the printing industry as a whole.
A petition currently under review by the commerce department claims Canadian producers of an uncoated groundwood paper used in newsprint and books are receiving unfair trade subsidies. Isakson and seven other senators sent a letter to commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and Robert Lighthizer, U.S. trade representative, requesting serious consideration of any punitive sanctions that would emerge from the investigation because of what they say would be negative impacts on American producers.
“The U.S. newspaper publishing and commercial printing sector employs more than 600,000 people in locations across the United States,” the letter states. “By contrast, the proposed trade intervention would benefit a single petitioner that employs approximately 260 individuals at one mill.”
Isakson pointed out in a release about the senators’ effort that the publishing and paper production industry in Georgia employ about 1,000 people.
If sanctions are too strong or too broad, they could drive up the price of newsprint and make producing newspapers in small communities very expensive. Demand for newsprint has diminished over the past 18 years, Isakson says, and taking action that would further erode the market for paper and drive up prices would be detrimental to community newspapers.
“Notwithstanding the decline in demand, people in small towns all over America still depend on their local newspapers,” Isakson said. “These petitions threaten to put those newspapers out of business and cut off rural and small-town America from their local news as well as from marketing opportunities that are vital to economic growth in these communities.”
We hope the commerce department takes this call from Isakson and his colleagues seriously. If punitive action is needed in a narrowly focused, particular case, it needs to be applied that way. If the impacts of punitive trade action in this case cause prices to soar or jobs to be lost, we hope the action is reconsidered.
We are obviously partial in this case, but the health of the newspaper industry does not need any more roadblocks to getting back into good shape.
Online: https://thebrunswicknews.com/
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