DENTON, TEXAS - Not that there’s a dearth of subjects to write about this week, but my attention was clearly caught by one of our letters. The writer stated, among other things, “I have just re-subscribed for a year online because the 'new' generation of The Mountain-Ear reporting and photography is great, and we need you more than ever….”
I was thrown back into memories of when I first started working for The Mountain-Ear, in 2004. That was two owners ago, and I had been writing for the Weekly Register-Call, mostly covering government meetings. I got a job that fall working in the presidential campaign, and I offered to write stories from my post, describing the life of a political campaign operative.
The WRC had no interest, so I proposed the same thing to TME, which was delighted to have my weekly “Dispatches from the Front.” The WRC promptly fired me for disloyalty, and I moved on to writing for TME.
I have a strong background in English and writing (degree in Creative Writing), and there was not, I have to say, a lot of really professional writing happening at TME back then.
One strong exception was our jill-of-all-trades, Barbara Lawlor, who tirelessly covered crime and emergencies (she had a police scanner in her home), schools and sports (virtually the same thing back then), and almost everything else.
Barbara was essentially a one-person newsroom, and we all dreaded the day she would leave us. As you probably know, she “died with her boots on,” working right up until her illness silenced her.
There was no online version of the paper then, and certainly no podcast, which hadn’t been invented yet. We were always struggling to find enough ads to pay for everything, because no one working for the paper was a real salesperson. Photos were black and white only.
Segue to our current status: We have a professional newsroom that wins awards. We have a professional sales staff. Although we’ve always been lucky in finding good layout people, we now have a creative staff that also wins awards.
Our reporters are also, bless them, decent photographers. (I shudder to remember some of the awful, boring photos I took of Gilpin Commissioners’ meetings.) Even our interns, some from high school and some from CU, are turning in professional articles.
After years of hopefully searching for good writers for the paper, I am finding that they are actually approaching us.
Indeed, to quote Dylan, “The times, they are a-changing.” And where The Mountain-Ear is concerned, definitely for the better.
