EDITORIAL
Greetings and Welcome to the New Winchendon Courier!
I'm Inanna Arthen, the Winchendon Courier's new owner, publisher, editor and web designer. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to take on the Courier and bring it into the next era of its long and fruitful life. I hope to compile a complete history of this newspaper for the Archives page. For one hundred and forty-one years, the Courier has not only told Winchendon's story, it's been a part of it.
Many of you know me as the recent minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Winchendon. Some of you knew my parents, Winchendon residents Jon and Kay Nicholson. Music lovers have seen me at the band concerts performed by Winchendon Winds, which I co-manage with my sister, Jill Sackett.
But not too many people know that I've been running a small press named By Light Unseen Media since 2007. By Light Unseen Media has been registered as a Winchendon business since I moved here in 2016. It's this business that is taking the Winchendon Courier under its wing. Because I run a publishing company, I'm trained and experienced in writing, editing, proofreading, page layout, typesetting, printing, promotion, website design, social media, graphic design...and every other skill set you utilize in publishing and information management. If it sounds like a lot--it is! And now I'm using it all for my adopted home of Winchendon.
I have high expectations and long-range goals for the Courier. In the short term, I want to offer as much news as I can to Winchendon residents about what's happening in our town. Other news sources seldom cover Winchendon news. We need a solid news source. Common knowledge is what makes us feel like a community.
In the long term, I'm exploring the possibility that the Winchendon Courier may some day become a print newspaper again. My plans now, including the design of the new website (modeled more or less after The Washington Post), are being developed with that vision in mind.
But wait, I hear you saying. Is that even possible?
Of course it is. Publishing is a business. Newspapers fold because they're not making enough money through advertizing revenues (that's what really keeps all information media alive) and circulation (it helps). If the online Courier ver. 2.0 can build up enough readership (counted as daily visitors to the web pages) and bring in enough advertizing revenue, there are publishers who will be interested in picking it up. Publishers will publish anything that makes money. I can speak to that with some authority.
And this is where you come in.
The Winchendon Courier needs a healthy amount of paid advertizing. It needs you to support those advertizers by clicking on the ads, patronizing local businesses and telling them you saw them in the Courier. That's what will support all the great content the Courier writers will be researching and writing for you.
I'm going to be talking to a lot of people in the coming weeks. I welcome suggestions, comments, proposals to write articles or columns, and especially queries about advertizements. We're in transition, so phone numbers and email addresses are changing. You can email me at Editor@winchendoncourier.net or call me at 978-297-1730.
I'd like to close with a huge shout-out to Winchendon Courier Editor-in-Chief, for eighteen years, Ruth DeAmicis, who refused to let the Courier die. I have some pretty big shoes to fill, and I hope I can do half as well at filling them.
Inanna Arthen
Journey of the Heart
Pols and the Next New Courier
First, kudos to all those kids out there Friday demonstrating and demanding we do something about climate change. Youthful activism is inspiring. Keep it up.
Anyway, I was thinking the other day about a guy named Jim Campbell. Jim was a young social worker whom I met in 1978 when he was making what turned out to be a successful bid for a seat in the Maryland state legislature. His was an eclectic district, one which included the offbeat avant-garde community of Hampden, a neighborhood which was home to the best burgers in Baltimore at Alonzo's and it included some of the more upscale neighborhoods straddling the city/county line in Mount Washington. I remember asking him why he decided to get into politics and his response was, and I'd heard this before, that politics was a worthwhile pursuit, a place where he could make a larger and broader difference than he could as a social worker. I respected that. I agreed with it. Then as now, serving in Maryland's state legislature was a part-time gig. The session only lasts 90 days and while there are of course some year-round responsibilities, members still held full-time jobs. Jim sort of had the best of both worlds--dealing with clients/patients while at the same time representing the artists, barkeeps, small business owners, doctors and lawyers in the district.
You don't hear much these days about politics being a noble profession. For example, the social workers I know from Courtney's Smith cohort have never indicated any interest in running for office, though they all are keenly interested in public affairs. And yet I will tell you despite what commands the headlines and the 24/7 churning on social media, politics can indeed be a noble profession. By no means is it the only way to impact your community, after all, I write all the time about various avenues of service, but it remains important and yes, worthwhile, especially on local levels.
Jim Campbell is the kind of person you want to see in office. There are thousands upon thousands of Jim Campbells out there and you know what they have in common? Character. Compassion. Decency. The differences between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders' Medicare-for-All and Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg's Medicare-for-All-Who-Want-It-In-Whatever-Form are less important than the character of the candidates. Keep this in mind, okay? Policy gets created through compromise. Character doesn't get compromised. A lot of very good, high-character people are in politics. Don't be fooled into believing otherwise.
The Courier's ownership, publishing and editorial responsibility has been officially transferred to Inanna Arthen who some readers may know from her work at the Unitarian Church on Central Street. Speaking of character and compassion, I can tell you Inanna was a great source of comfort and support after Courtney passed. She has some interesting and exciting ideas. Stay tuned. The entire community owes her a debt of gratitude for keeping alive the 140-year-plus tradition of the local newspaper.
I'm appreciative she'll continue running this column which I've been writing pretty much on a weekly basis for 14-1/2 years except for when I was too sick to write. I'm also going to contribute here and there on the news side. I've got a story in the works about the soon-to-be-open shelter at the CAC and about the pending massive education reform package making it's way through the legislature. There will be some others too. I've written I want to focus primarily on the Courtney book and I am, but, well, I feel like we've all got a responsibility to our community so I'll keep my hand in a little bit.
And of course I want to thank Ruth for all she's done for me as an editor and friend these last 18 or so years. It's sure been a blast, hasn't it? Even if we never did get certain budget numbers! See you next time.