Dear Reader: Thank you

Tulsa Today is grateful for your support.

Among the many things Tulsa Today has to be thankful for in 2016 we thank you, our readers, for twenty years of support.

It was clear in 1996 that media was suffering as competition dwindled. Tulsa Today asserts that all media is local just as all politics is local and without vibrant open local discussion of public issues; Liberty cannot thrive, community cannot survive and individuals cannot prosper.

We have lost friends along the way. Some have moved on to their final reward, to larger media platforms, to private focus and to other parts of the world. We remember them all with gratitude and celebrate their gifts as shared.

Others we no longer count as friends and accept that life moves people closer and away.

In the beginning, Tulsa Today aggressively sought diversity. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult to include the deluded left. We personally care as some were once dear, but what is beyond repair must rest beyond regard.

Jared Kushner, in an excellent exclusive interview with Forbes discussed losing friends and business associates unexpectedly as his father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, ran for president.

“I call it an exfoliation,” Kushner told Forbes. “Anyone who was willing to change a friendship or not do business because of who somebody supports in politics is not somebody who has a lot of character.

“People are very fickle,” Kushner adds. “You have to find what you believe in, challenge your truths. And if you believe in something, even if it’s unpopular, you have to push with it.”

Tulsa Today has championed truth as we understand it, stopped international fraud, discovered corruption by elected officials now convicted of felonies, opposed tax increases while supporting needed public infrastructure and public officials of good character.

We also made mistakes. Tulsa Today has been overly exuberant in some writing. We have witnessed those we once supported prove less than honorable to our great regret.

We have published during natural and terrorist disasters, divorce, relocations and multiple physical and hack attacks from foreign and domestic sources. The details we are saving for the book, but please know that reporting here over the last twenty years was and is made fulfilling greatly because of your loyalty, encouragement and forthright goodhearted correction. Again, thank you for all.

Today, as we celebrate blessings and gather with family and friends, we rededicate ourselves to the principles of God, Country and Community, Liberty, Free Enterprise, Rule of Law and Individual Freedom. We will, with your continued help, keep pushing.

1988 Winners of the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards with Hugh and Christie Hefner. Print Journalism Recipient, David Arnett, is shown far left, back row.

About the author: David Arnett won two national awards as a First Amendment Advocate. He worked as a city-hall reporter for the former Tulsa Tribune and as paid contributor to several other regional and national papers. Arnett published many local print editions and, in 1996, founded TulsaToday.com online as a local platform for diverse news and opinion.

Arnett was the last local call-in radio talk show host on a major station in Tulsa and the first to organize a Tulsa Christmas Parade when establishment organizers forgot the reason for the season in 2011. Arnett is also a consultant for corporate, nonprofit and select political campaigns.