Welcome to Volume II
You hold in your hands issue number I of Volume II of The Carrboro Citizen. Whether it is the first time you’ve picked up a copy of the paper or this is the 53rd time you’ve delved into one long enough to reach the Opinion page, please know that we could not have made it a year without you, our readers.
It has been an arduous year in many ways — doing a lot of things for the first time is exhilarating but not all that efficient. And throughout our first four seasons, all of us involved have been buoyed by the encouragement and, in some case, the outright affection displayed toward our little newspaper.
When we started, we were not sure if y’all would take to The Citizen, given that this is supposedly an age of declining newspaper readership and a society leaning toward a more and more homogenized, less locally focused and, well, vapid media.
But we were driven by a strong belief in the importance of a local newspaper and an equally strong desire to prove the doomsayers in our industry wrong.
We were inspired, in fact, by everyone who told us we were crazy, including prominent members of the local business community who pointed to other papers and said the locals wouldn’t care and our competition would be too fierce. And then there was the editor of a nearby daily who scoffed at us and told a friend he thought Carrboro was “overserved†by local media and didn’t have enough “news†to warrant its own paper.
In truth, we kinda figured that few people around here knew what a local community weekly was any more. Folks kept saying, “What’s your slant?†or, “What do you mean by community newspaper?†The fun thing about all that was how those questions stopped once the paper hit the streets.
We hope we’ve been clear in our intent to each week provide that living diary of the life of this town, just as we promised. From who’s on stage to following the drought, from the details of new development to what’s at the Farmers’ Market, we have tried to make each issue of The Citizen an informative and fun read.
We know it can get better and, thanks to your support, bigger, and we intend to continue to pursue solid, fair journalism and weave in all the features and items of interest that make us the weekly page-turner.
And while all those pats on the back have been a boost, we recognize that it’s not exactly like we invented the wheel. A weekly newspaper may be hard work at times, but it’s not rocket surgery and there are a lot of examples even around here of how to do it right.
This week, as a form of personal celebration, I finally plunked down $35 at the Bookshop for a faded, yellowed set of Volume VIII of The Chapel Hill Weekly and spent some time in the office leafing through editor Louis Graves and company’s take on our community circa 1930.
In addition to learning about the trustees naming Frank Graham president of the university, the tax rate dropping by 12 cents and a gas pipeline from Durham being completed, I also read about Professor Totten growing a beard during a transcontinental adventure, jam sessions at Paul Green’s home, a curious snake with feet, and read a gripping first-person account of Graves and a professor friend chasing a large rat around the house of the editor’s next-door neighbor.
The lesson that Graves and others like him, including the grandfather and father of Citizen publisher Robert Dickson, offer to all of us in this business is that newspapers belong to their communities and not vice versa.
This is your paper. We’ve known that from Day One. It is an honor to have the opportunity to be The Citizen’s stewards.
Here’s to Year One — and to you.
— Kirk Ross
A loud hurrah and congratulations for a great first year. Wishing for you even more success in coming years.