Ink Spots
For well over a decade, The News-Gazette has featured columns from opposing sides of the political spectrum – our own version of Point-Counterpoint. We hoped that these columns might help bring some insights to people who were honestly trying to understand viewpoints different from their own. That’s a tall order in today’s hyper-partisan environment. I’m afraid that too many readers today will embrace the writer expressing and reinforcing their own views, and automatically reject anything written by the writer coming from an opposing political perspective. I’ve come to the conclusion that these columns aren’t helping us find any middle ground – if there is any such thing today ‒ but rather stoking our divisions. For that reason, the newspaper’s editorial board has decided to go in other directions with our weekly column rotation.
For the immediate future, I will continue to write every four weeks, generally about things that affect our newspaper and the community newspaper industry in general – though I reserve the privilege of going off topic occasionally. Joann Ware, our award-winning pop culture columnist, will continue with her column.
We want the other two columns in the rotation to focus on local people and issues that affect local people. One new column idea is to feature a local person who actively gives of their time and talents. This may be by volunteering for a community organization, or it may be someone who quietly, but regularly helps others. We’re asking that if you know of someone like this to let us know who they are, and why they should be recognized.
This country has always been known around the world as a “nation of volunteers.” Volunteering and community service has been a defining characteristic of our culture for years, but lately, fewer people are stepping up to help local charitable organizations. People seem less inclined to interact with their neighbors. We hope that by providing some good examples, we might stimulate more community involvement, or even just people quietly helping others.
The fourth column in our new rotation we plan to devote to exploring topics in wellness and healthy living. We plan on looking more at the everyday things people can do to make themselves more healthy rather than the occasional dramatic health breakthroughs that don’t always result in improvements in overall health for most people. We hope we can find some interesting and applicable topics that could help readers with real-world health concerns.
These changes reflect the belief that our editorial staff has that we should always be looking at how we can make the newspaper better and more useful to our readers. While we’re proud of our 225 year history, we can’t just rest on that legacy. We need to be always looking at improving what we do, and what useful information we can provide to the community.
We will see how these new columns resonate with readers and probably fine-tune them over time. We look forward to your input and comments.
