A reminder if you’ve missed the other notes.
For the first time in 43 years, we’re taking a week off between Christmas and New Year’s. So, no paper next week. We’ll be back in print on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024.
Why the break? A few reasons. Our small crew of reporters, our editor, designers, salespeople and admins work very hard week after week. It will do us all good to have 10 days off, to be with friends and family, some fun, some downtime.
And honestly, the task of compiling all those year-in-review stories to fill space in that lost-in-time issue, frankly, which seem likely to go largely unread — well, it made us want to take a rest.
Not much news. Not much advertising. A good time to take the week off.
Mind you, we will be paying attention and if major news breaks, we will jump on it and publish it promptly online.
Here’s the segue you’ve doubtless anticipated: The publisher just told us he gave the entire staff a week off but isn’t there a promo on page 1 about needing to raise money by Dec. 31?! So now he’s going to ask us for money while telling us there is no paper next week?
Yes.
Here at Growing Community Media — publisher of Riverside-Brookfield Landmark, Wednesday Journal, Austin Weekly News, and Forest Park Review — we punch above our weight. That’s what I tell people when they ask why we didn’t cover this story, or that meeting, or their kid.
Don’t get me wrong. We love what we do and we’re proud of it. But there are only a handful of us over here in the newsroom on Oak Park Avenue. Four reporters. Our editor. A part-time Viewpoints editor. A digital manager. Three page designers. And a strong and valued batch of freelance reporters and photographers.
So yes, our staff deserves time off. And yes, I am asking you to become a donor to Growing Community Media, our nonprofit newsroom, right now. Before Dec. 31.
We are working to raise $250,000 by then to fund our work and to grow our newsroom. It is an ambitious goal but an attainable one.
If you value the newspaper you are reading, if you believe local news is the glue that makes our communities strong, if you want this newspaper arriving in your mailbox or at a newsstand every week — or at least almost every week — I’m asking you to invest in it.
I said recently that we know donating to the local paper feels sort of counterintuitive. We’re not providing housing or job training or education. But we do serve the public good, and the business model that used to drive this engine just doesn’t work anymore. That doesn’t make independent local news any less important. It means we need to find a new and improved model to fund it.
At Growing Community Media we have found the model. And we’re building it out in real time. Part of that model is giving our valued staff some deserved time off. Part of that model is asking our dedicated readers to join in paying for journalism you value.
May your holidays bring peace.
Dan Haley
Publisher, Growing Community Media