by Matt Marquardt –
Time for some blunt talk. This is an update to the public on the status of NorthIowaToday.com.
Throughout its existence, practically since the day it was launched on October 1, 2010, NorthIowaToday.com has been under attack on a number of fronts.
Among the first attacks were cowardly legal threats from the Globe Gazette and KIMT. The next attack came from City Hall, when I was personally told to “give up” by our mayor. There have been countless other attempts by various culprits to bring NIT back down from the heights it has so quickly reached.
Over the past two years of the existence of NorthIowaToday.com, several influential persons in Mason City have approached our advertisers in an effort to diminish or completely remove their presence on NIT. These same persons have taken it upon themselves to move against me personally and my business in general. Their apparent goal is to destroy NIT by any means, thereby protecting their own agendas and keeping the whole story from you. These people hate truthful reporting and want only to continue their free ride from the other media at the expense of the greater public. They despise the fact that NIT answers to no one but our readers and cannot grasp the fact that thousands of people read NIT everyday.
Now, just this past week, a massive spam campaign was launched against NorthIowaToday.com which nearly brought down our web servers. At about the same time, comments that NIT readers wrote on our site were systematically deleted from our system by an unknown source. The deleted comments were critical of influential people in Mason City and the surrounding area; no other comments were deleted. The comments are gone and there is no trace of them left. We have received numerous emails and complaints from our readers pointing out their missing comments. Our web hosting provider has been less than forthcoming and provided minimal support so far in investigating this incident. In fact, they went so far as to make changes to critical NIT web files and even shut NIT down for a brief time without consulting me.
I consider all of the above to be attacks upon myself and NorthIowaToday.com and it is taken very seriously. The persons responsible have made it difficult at times to deal with the regular day-to-day operations of this business while working to produce the content our readers demand. The above mentioned malfeasance will be investigated in perpetuity and I hope to discover the identities of all involved.
I want to assure our loyal subscribers, advertisers and readers that the despicable attempts by these people has thus far failed. NIT is stronger than ever and will continue to grow. We continue to add paid subscribers, as we near 250 after 11 weeks of offering subscriptions. We add new, eager advertisers each week.
We have upgraded and solved (for the time being) the story commenting issues and now once again are able to allow comments from NIT readers to instantly post to our site.
We will continue to upgrade NorthIowaToday.com and address other technical issues while working to bring you the news and information the other so-called media ignore.
In closing, you, the NIT reader, might be able to help. I would ask that anyone with information about any of the above issues contact me immediately, via email at staff@northIowatoday.com or you may call our office at 515-897-1144. Your information is appreciated. Thank you for reading.
