“It was good seeing smiling faces on the cover of the paper this issue.”
I rarely get letters to the editor, so getting a phone call to the editor—and not one (just) to complain about my lack of writing skilz—was a bit of a shock.
The cover in question was last issue, featuring Jan and Dean, smiling because they were about to get their first days off this century, and new Home Hardware owners Mark and Amanda, smiling because they’re about to embark on a new adventure.
I thanked her for the compliments and the brickbats.
(I had included a reference to the poem Gate of the Year, which includes the lines: “I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown’. And he replied “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, and safer than a known way.” I cut that reference due to space, but later refer back to it, saying “The darkness will return. But hope remains.” She wasn’t pleased with the reference to darkness.
Forget “hope is a thing with feathers,” Hope—true hope—is not fragile, it is a fighter…look, just go back and read last issue’s editorial. I don’t want to get dragged into covering the same ground as last week. (“What else is new?” Yes, ha ha. Very funny.))
But it got me thinking. My job here is not to be relentlessly optimistic and write about only that which is good and upbeat; that way lies emotional suppression and avoidance of reality. I am not here to look at the world through rose coloured glasses.
But at the same time, the goal of the paper is not to only cover that which is negative and bad. “If it bleeds it leads” is a common mantra in news organizations, but I have always said the core focus in a community newspaper is the community: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.
But what gets covered in the paper, I have come to realize, is not a fair reflection of the town.
That’s my fault. I am, you see, only one person, and I see the world through these two eyes.
And, even though I look, I sometimes don’t see.
This summer, for instance, there were a number of golf tournaments, including one for TR Cares, an organization that I am quite involved with. Another one was for TRORA; I sit on the board for one of the member organizations. I knew there was a number of golf tournaments happening. But because nobody reached out to me and said “the tournament is happening tomorrow,” they mostly passed unnoticed. Well, that and the broken leg. That affected what I could cover, too.
That’s just one example. There are more. You might think that because I do this work as a reporter, I am great at doing interviews and find no bigger joy than randomly calling up people to talk to them.
In reality, I am introverted, and depending on the day, it can be very hard to reach out of that shell. So things go un-covered in the paper and on-line, because I didn’t have enough metaphorical spoons to cold call someone.
I mentioned earlier this was a community paper. That means the paper is for the community, but it is also by the community, at least theoretically.
No, that doesn’t mean that I will be publishing any old claptrap that gets sent my way; while community is at the top of list of priorities, things like accuracy, integrity, honesty, impartiality and fairness also rate high on that scale, but it does mean that I can’t do this alone.
I need your help.
How can you do that? An easy way is to send me ideas about stories that are developing around town. If you like, you can go all Deep Throat. (No not that one, the Watergate one. Mark Felt, who hid his identity behind a pseudonym for over 30 years. Sheesh.) Meaning you can sent anonymous tips, or ask not to be credited as the source of information. I can’t promise I’ll be able to cover everything that people send me (because sometimes actual facts are hard to find and hidden behind a screen of opinions and “I heard from someone that their friend said that someone told them at work…”
But if you know a good news story? Feel free to share it. I am not opposed to good news (indeed, one could argue that I’m predisposed in that direction), I just don’t want to make the paper a pollyannic missive, hanging about singing “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life,” though that is one of my favourite songs.
Or, if you know a bad news story, or a story that would reveal something about the dark underbelly of Tumbler Ridge…again, I am not going to say no simply because it’s dark. (Indeed, I’ve been wanting to write something about illicit drugs in town for a while, but I don’t know any drug dealers. Except Charissa.)
And if you want to write the story? So much the better. The goal of the paper was always to have a variety of voices representing different corners of the community, but it seems to have become just me.
Second. Many of the things I write about are things I stumble across while doing source checks (which is sometimes, but not always, code for doomscrolling Facebook). If you happen to stumble across something while you are doomscrolling and thing it worth checking out, feel free to pass it on to me. Don’t assume that I know about something simply because it’s on Facebook or because everybody knows. The amount of stuff that I don’t know could fill a space data centre.
Finally, you could become a supporter of the paper. People who contribute at least $3.25/issue even get the paper delivered to their door as a thank you. As a bonus, this helps me employ a couple carrier creatures to bring the paper to your door. www.patreon.com/tumblerridgelines for info.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
