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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
One Person's Graffiti . The Art of Dialogue
One of life's challenges is adapting to change.
As a mother, the latest change in my life is that daughter number two just flew from the nest and moved from Madison to San Francisco. Both of my daughters are now on the west coast.
As we finished packing the bright yellow Penske truck and had last hugs around, I was reminded that very little in life is static. Change is constant. How we deal with it can be a measure of our success as parents, as business owners, as elected representatives, as members of a community.
Louis Melamed and I have had the opportunity to participate in the Blandin Foundation's Editors and Publishers Community Leadership Program for rural newspapers this year, taught through the Minnesota Newspaper Association.
This conference has introduced us to a number of editors and publishers with various news enterprises in Minnesota.
It is good to know that there are others who ask the same questions we do: How can we maximize the relevance of our news enterprise to you, our customer in the marketplace?
One of the primary roles of a newspaper in a community is to frame the issues, thereby elevating public interest in and promoting dialogue on those community concerns.
Examples of this in our recent news coverage might be:
"Abuse It And You'll Lose It," an article about recent graffiti in Centerville's skate park. Within that article, voices were heard from elected representatives as well as young users of the skate park, and the question was raised, "Is one person's graffiti another person's art?"
Or, a number of articles we have presented on the subject of development and the very real impacts the current market decline is having on city plans: "Downtown Project Stalling Over Market Fears" (Centerville); "Ice-Cold Market Deals Developments A 'Wait-And-See' Card" (Hugo); and "Lino Lakes Owed $1.5 Million For Legacy Project" (Lino Lakes).
What position do you think your city government should take with respect to financial risk?
Another example of calling attention to an issue might be the recent citizen petitions brought forward on the subject of the discharge of firearms in Hugo. In view of ongoing development in Hugo, is this an issue that is ripe for discussion? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But we can help introduce the topic.
As a news enterprise, we cannot control what happens in our community, but we can influence how it is seen, understood and acted upon.
In our quest to bring you the local news, we wonder: what can we do better?
Some of you have let us know by sharing your thoughts with us.
You have sent e-mails or made phone calls to respond to something you have read in The Citizen, or you have asked us to help you share information with your neighbors.
But in trying to maintain relevance in our local news coverage, we recognize that in Centerville, Hugo and Lino Lakes, we have a very diverse group of readers.
We recognize that the very subjects we choose to cover can have an impact on the kind of communities we build together.
How can we maximize the relevance of The Citizen to you, our customer in the marketplace?
The Citizen will be looking for reader input in the near future, as part of our ongoing efforts to discover what the members of our community consider their key issues.
Please consider participating in that dialogue with us. It won't be the same without you.
- Deb
Please look for a "Citizen Survey" in the July 23 issue of The Citizen, and let us know what you're thinking.