Two years ago, in what can generously be described as a questionable decision-making window, I purchased a small-town newspaper. Not a booming industry, not a safe bet, not even something you could convincingly explain at a dinner party without getting that look. A newspaper. In an era where people are more likely to argue with headlines than read them and where the business model is held together with equal parts stubbornness, duct tape and whatever loose change we can shake out of the couch cushions. This is not, for those keeping score at home, how you’re supposed to make money.
Here’s what nobody warns you about when you take over a small-town paper: the job is not one job. It is every job, running simultaneously, usually at the worst possible time. I have written front-page stories and then immediately gone to go fix the internet. I have interviewed elected officials and then driven across town to drop off a stack of papers because the delivery situation was, to put it charitably, complicated that week. I have sat in meetings that tested my understanding of why civilization bothers organizing itself at all and then gone back to the office and tried to boil down the important stuff for readers. The version of this job I imagined and the version of this job I actually do are related, but only loosely, the way a recipe and what you put on the table are related after a long day when you’re working with whatever’s left in the fridge.
What kept surprising me, edition after edition, was how much this community needed someone to simply pay attention. Not in a dramatic sense, but in the quiet, unglamorous way that attention actually works. Showing up to the meeting nobody thought would matter. Following a story through the boring middle where most people drop it. That’s not exciting journalism. There’s no montage. But consistency, just showing up week after week, does something that’s hard to quantify and impossible to fake.
We’ve gotten things right over these 100 editions and we’ve gotten things wrong, sometimes in print, which is a special kind of accountability that keeps you honest whether you want it to or not. We’ve been thanked and criticized and had conversations that went sideways in ways I didn’t see coming. All of that is part of it. You cannot cover a community and expect only the comfortable parts.
One hundred editions is not the finish line. There’s more to cover, more to build and more ways to do this better than we currently do it. But on edition 101, we’ll be here. Not because it’s easy or figured out, but because some version of this community without a paper paying attention to it is worse. I believe that more now than I did on day one.
None of this happens alone. Matt and Debbie Barger built something worth saving and trusted me to carry it forward. Debbie still works full time every week to make sure the paper gets out each week. Linda Kor, Talaina Kor, Dani O’Callaghan, Kathy Conner, Greg Perkins, Crystal Fisher and everyone else who has shown up for this paper week after week; this is as much theirs as it is mine and I am genuinely grateful for every one of them.
One hundred editions in, I don’t have it all figured out. Nor would I hold my breath on me figuring it out soon. But we’ll be here for 101 and the one after that, because some version of this community without a paper paying attention to it is worse. I believe that more now than I did on day one. So if you’ve read, subscribed, sent a tip, or just told someone this paper was worth their time, thank you. You’re the reason it keeps going.
