
{"id":27412,"date":"2012-08-16T10:29:19","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T14:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=27412"},"modified":"2012-08-16T10:29:19","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T14:29:19","slug":"letter-save-our-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/08\/16\/letter-save-our-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Save our Citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Carrboro,<\/p>\n<p>Happy summer, old friend. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking good: Traffic is flowing on Weaver Street again; Open Eye is packed; Weaver Street Market\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lawn is a-buzz and the Farmers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Market continues to amaze. But as wonderful as you are, my dear town, we have a problem. <\/p>\n<p>What if you heard that the Carrboro Farmers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Market was going under? No more local organic produce from a trusted independent source? Outrageous! Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you find a way to save one of our irreplaceable community institutions?<\/p>\n<p>So now think about the potential demise of another of our vital Carrboro community institutions. We have learned that our locally owned, locally produced and widely trusted community newspaper is at risk, and if a new owner is not found, <em>The Carrboro Citizen<\/em> will fold. <\/p>\n<p>That is just unacceptable. We have all watched these last five years as The Citizen has grown from a modest start-up into a trusted and reliable voice in our community. And as a faculty member in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153J-School\u00e2\u20ac\u009d specializing in community newspapers of excellence, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell you how proud I am of <em>The Citizen<\/em>. Proud to be call Carrboro \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my town\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and proud to be affiliated with such a high-quality and committed local news outlet. <\/p>\n<p>Dear Carrboro, do not take such a blessing for granted. As the director of the Carolina Community Media Project these last dozen years, I have led workshops at small newspapers from Murphy to Manteo, and I can say without reservation that The Citizen is one of our state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s finest weeklies.<\/p>\n<p>Years ago, Tar Heel and CBS legend Charles Kuralt predicted the media would have a bright future if it became \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relentlessly local.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We call such newspapers \u00e2\u20ac\u0153community newspapers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d where unapologetically local news gets the front billing. <\/p>\n<p>Heeding Kuralt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advice, enlightened publishers like Robert Dickson realize that in addition to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153telling the news,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the great community newspaper serves a greater good, very much like a sacred calling. Ultimately <em>The Citizen<\/em> has been an engine for social capital and civic engagement, vital ingredients in the maintenance of this robust community.<\/p>\n<p>So Dear Carrboro, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t picture you without your own newspaper. I just know there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s someone out there ready to take the baton and run with it. After all, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not <em>The Citizen<\/em>; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OUR <em>Citizen<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Yr hmbl svt,<\/p>\n<p>Jock Lauterer<br \/>\n<em>Director, Carolina Community Media Project<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My dear town, we have a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27413,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27412\/revisions\/27413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}