Leuterers News Service was first launched on the world tide of online journalism in 1998. With Editor-in-Chief Jed Murrow at the helm, along with veteran investigative journalists Panther Weinhard and Tumbleweed Jack Smith early news articles were posted on the world wide web via the NPR website in its once vibrant yet virtually unknown Online Community Forum.
The NPR forum dissolved – as did those of the NYTimes, CNN and Salon – early in the new millennium, ironically due to a growing awareness via a general growing online population. The inability of so many new users to communicate in a respectful manner – as early internet forum interactions leaned heavily toward – led to the inability for any kind of reasonable moderation efforts to be enabled which respected free speech in its entirety. In short, a vast majority of new users simply were incapable of maintaining a level of decorum that is vital in maintaining and improving upon social discourse.
Early Facebook provided some respite for the Leuterers News Service though it too quickly became a hotbed for mean spirited trolls and dis-information campaigns. Needless to say Facebook has grown to be a vast forum of those ills the early hosting pioneers mentioned above saw coming and as such made their removals. Facebook, having no such moral compunctions, decided instead to monetize its platform which thrived on nurturing and celebrating the most base aspects of the human condition. But then again, Facebook was simply staying the course set at its inception at Harvard when it was designed to serve one purpose and one purpose only.
Leuterers did finally claim its own internet presence in 2012 but due to many outside issues it was decided to be best for all involved to continue their critical investigative journalism in a freelance capacity posting articles on various sites which supported such postings.
In the early Fall of 2020 Leuterers’ founder Jed Murrow contacted Panther Weinhard and Tumbleweed Jack Smith, who both just happened to be between journalism gigs, and just like that, like Tom Thumb Blues, the band is back together.
We hope you enjoy our offerings.