Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.1.
If you’re impressed with this first issue, thank you! If you’re not impressed, well, neither am I. First issues don’t really mean a lot anyway. It’s how they look after about a year or so. There are a lot of things I would have loved to see in this first issue, but the reason they aren’t here is because you all still have to produce them.
Yes, you. Countryside Post will be attempting to live up to the title “community paper” by letting, for once, a community contribute to its local paper. If you think about it, it’s not something you see very often. Many of the people who work at a newspaper often don’t live in the area they cover. Many of them were hired from other towns, and hired not because they know the area, but because they graduated from journalism school. If you’ve ever wondered why a paper gets so out of touch with its readership, that’s why.
I personally am no different, I suppose, but that’s just me. The publisher’s a local. And hopefully, all the Post’s writers—that’s you—will be local. And hopefully you’ll be encouraged to contribute after you see what we’re attempting to start up.
First of all, we’d like a real, honest-to-God religion section. If any pastors, preachers or priests feel an urge to write something, it’s God’s will for you to send something to the Post. (If you don’t think it’s His will, why else do you think He gave you this opportunity?) Call me at the Post (268-3420) and we’ll set something up.
Second, we’ve got a Calendar of Events (you may have seen it on the front page) which needs to know if you’ve got anything that’s coming up. Send those events to the Post, c/o the Calendar.
Third, if you’ve been on vacation or you’ve done any hunting or fishing and have something to brag about, the Post would love to publish your pictures and stories. (If you have fishing photos, the computer can always make the fish in your photos look a bit bigger, in case your fish stories need to match the evidence. Nah, just kidding.)
Fourth, if you feel the need or the urge to write, we’re taking contributions. And if you know of any stories you’d like the Post to cover, we urge you—yes, you—to write them. Think you’re not the writing type? Don’t worry; you should see some of the things I’ve had to edit from people who thought they were the writing type. But if you don’t think you’re a good writer, that’s okay; I’m a good editor. I’ll make you look good. (Chances are you already are.)
If you think you’ve got something interesting, give me a ring at 268-3420.
Thanks for reading this far.
—Kent Leslie, managing editor
Update, 10/20/2024: Of course this doesn’t sound like a blog entry; it’s my first “Letter from the Editor” column in the first issue of Countryside Post. That’s a newspaper I helped my aunt, Jill Beeby (now Jill Leslie again), start in Grass Valley, California. I was its managing editor for about a year and a half.
That is the Post’s actual phone number. I don’t believe it still works. It likely belongs to someone else who won’t appreciate you calling it out of curiosity.
When I helped start The Dixon Newspaper (now the Independent Voice) in Dixon, California, we figured out the fastest way to get a respectable circulation was by mailing it to everyone free. I told Jill that’s how we did it in Dixon; she decided to do the same thing in unincorporated southern Nevada County. That’s how we got the newspaper’s name: We were sending it to the countryside, through the post.
Later, as we began to get more involved in south Nevada County civics, Jill and I realized it might’ve been better named “the South Nevada County Post.” Oh well. But then again, maybe we’d wanna expand our circulation and coverage to western Nevada County—into Penn Valley. So perhaps “countryside” was the better title.
For pretty much the entire time there, we had a staff of two: Jill and me. Jill assumed I’d write all the articles. Ha! I mean, I certainly could do that; I’d done it for the Bethany College Dialog. But I came to the Post with a strategy: In order to get the locals to quickly and truly embrace the paper, they had to see themselves in it. Not just see themselves written about; they had to write the articles. It’s one thing to be written about; it’s another to see your name in print on a byline.
Hence I solicited contributions to the Post. And we got them. As soon as people began to realize I really meant it—that I’d actually publish their contributions instead of rejecting them for various snobbish reasons, or editing the life out of them—contributions poured in. We had more than we could run.
Further, to also encourage the public, I muted my opinions. My views had to take a back seat to theirs. Oh, I was gonna write a column; there needed to be some direct communication between the editor and the public. But it wasn’t gonna be about my views, so much as how the Post worked.
So this was not an editorial. But everybody was used to the editor writing an editorial, so they just called it an editorial. “Didn’t you say in your editorial that we could send you photos?” people might ask, and I’d reply, “Yes, definitely—oh by the way, that’s a column, not an editorial.” Sometimes they’d ask me to explain the difference. Most of the time they were indifferent.
Editorials are usually “the paper’s opinion.” Since the Post’s staff was Jill and me, any editorial would either be our joint opinion, or we’d hire (or, more likely, gather volunteers for) an editorial board and leave it to them… or we’d do the lazy thing and it’d just be mine. But like I later stated in issue 1.8, when I explained why we endorsed no one for office, “Countryside Post will not exaggerate the solitary opinion of the editor or publisher by labeling it the opinion of the paper.”
Besides, editorials are frequently about local politics. So are many colunns; my column in the Dixon paper was almost always political. But as I said, my opinions were on mute. I didn’t want my viewpoints to alienate anyone. The Post wasn’t created because Jill or I had any particular axe to grind. (The Dixon Newspaper sure was!) We were trying to fill what we considered to be a missing civic need. Oh, and while we were at it, we’d sell some advertising and make some money. Politics would’ve driven away anyone with an opposing or conflicting viewpoint, and the last thing a startup business needs is ill will.
Despite all this, many in the public didn’t realize there was any difference, and didn’t care. Guess that’s what I get for being innovative.
Public reaction was surprisingly positive. As I said, the Post got lots of contributions. But there was one complaint about the “honest-to-God religion section” from one of the locals. She didn’t want there to be any proselytization in the newspaper. Well I didn’t either!—but she had nothing to worry about, ’cause none of the pastors in the area (including my own pastor) took up my challenge and sent anything.
There was a much stronger reaction to the hunting photos, which we’ll come to soon enough.