LET'S CHAT: Newspaper a 24/7 effort to share info

I write every week. In fact, I have written and published “something” almost every week of my adult working life.

In fact, there’s a list of things I’d like to write about. The list ebbs and flows as time passes. Some things finally progress from a list to finished product. Others are scratched, often due to lack of time, lack of information or a loss of interest. Most likely that is how it will be for the rest of my days. There’s plenty of ideas in my head, more ideas than time.

One specific type of writing that I have migrated away from in the past few years has been my column. Not the occasional editorial/opinion piece intended to represent the general point of view of the newspaper. Those editorials are intended to provoke thought, and spark conversation and consideration of an issue or topic.

Instead, I’m thinking of my personal column. That printed space in the newspaper where I have previously inked my thoughts about things I’m interested in at that moment or millisecond.

The majority of my tenure in the Yakima Valley included a weekly personal column and they seemed well received. Over the past 19 years, my columns have been a place to ramble about things large and small of importance to me. In some ways, much like a Letter to the Editor typically represents the specific thoughts and feelings of its author.

These personal columns have been silly, frustrating, profound, thoughtful, helpful and boring too, I imagine. Hopefully along the way some of them were entertaining or uplifting.

I wrote many times about my son and daughter. I rambled a bunch about hunting and fishing. I’ve even confessed to a few mistakes or embarrassing moments and things many of you would never consider writing about and certainly wouldn’t be brave enough to share with the general public.

In government these days, politicians love to use the word transparency. They want us to believe they are showing and telling us everything they are doing as our elected leaders.

I’ve been transparent, to a fault, for a long time. My idea of transparent isn’t as cloudy as the transparency some elected officials I know tend to hide behind.

Three years ago I wrote half a dozen columns while sequestered in a recliner, battling cancer. I like to think those were some of the more beneficial columns I will ever write. They were certainly therapeutic for me, the writer.

Over the past 18 months, personal columns became the one thing I ceased to write. One reason is the change in the make up of The Journal’s staff. I spend more time now designing advertisements for our business clients since Lavonne joyfully retired and rode off into the sunset to geo cache. We replaced the bookkeeping portion of Lavonne, but the graphic design role was absorbed by the publisher (me).

I keep thinking that I should write these columns. If not for you, then for me, because they provide a venue to share what I’m thinking, what I’m experiencing, what I like and what I love.

And, occasionally, the things I’m not particularly fond of. Guess that’s a long segway to what I have on my mind.

In 2004, when I purchased The Journal, things were in need of some inspiration and energy and we did that. We went from an eight-page paper to 12 pages or more every week (almost every week, to be honest).

We doubled the amount of hours staff spent attending functions, events, school activities and high school sports. If you remember, the vast majority of sports coverage prior to 2004 was coming from student submissions. The Journal had intentionally stopped attending and photographing high school sporting events as a way to reduce expenses.

Could you imagine us doing that now? Not hardly. In some ways, we set the bar high, then pushed it higher and in the past year, really elevated it with our coverage of the Broncos state football championship run. Effectively creating a monster.

I have a specific vision about what a community newspaper should be, what it should cover and what the priorities are. Mind you, I am not all knowing or super intelligent, so sometimes my perspective needs to be adjusted. I know, you’re either laughing or nodding in complete agreement.

Anyhow, there was no http://www.ritzvillejournal.com in 2004. And there certainly wasn’t any social media, a.k.a. Facebook.

Over the past few years The Journal, a weekly newspaper, has become a seven-day-a-week information source. It’s not a perfect science. There are only three full time employees, counting me.

Katelin, Janis and I are busy. There’s almost never a day where we arrive at work and celebrate the fact that we have nothing to do for the next eight hours.

If you consider your personal lives and the things you do in the evenings and on weekends, how many times do you see someone from The Journal there? We are all part of our communities, and we’re trying to do that while working at the same time.

The advent of our Internet presence provides us a way to deliver more and more information to the readers in a variety of different ways. That’s good.

Meanwhile, the flagship is the printed newspaper … remember, it’s now 126 years old. The advertising in the newspaper pays the bills. It provides the salaries that go to the employees who frequently work six and seven days a week to report on all of the community happenings.

We’re expected to be almost everywhere, if not everywhere.

Social media and our website represent expanded services and are not financially viable ones at that. We don’t collect revenue at all from Facebook. The website’s annual subscribers do not even cover the cost of operating the site.

Yet, on Facebook The Ritzville Adams County Journal page has 963 individuals who have “liked” our news and sports coverage. That means Facebook has become a critical part of what we do.

Remember, there are just three of us on staff full time. We couldn’t do it without the support of countless moms, friends, relatives and coaches who send us text message updates with scores and information from games.

We’ve made the commitment to the Internet presence to make sure there is a legitimate source in Ritzville providing you with community news and information.

There’s one thing that worries me. If our only source of income is from the businesses who advertise with us, what will we do, if our readers do not support those businesses and shop locally whenever possible?

More importantly, if you don’t let those businesses know that you see their advertisements in The Journal, how will they know that they have made an effective investment in reaching out to you?

We all have to work together here. The Journal’s staff knew what it was doing when it leapt into the digital and online age.

That doesn’t mean we will be here forever if you aren’t supporting local businesses and therefore they aren’t supporting us.

The more you patronize the businesses who advertise in your community newspaper, the more successful they will be. Odds are, as a result, they will continue to use The Journal to share their message with you.