Last week our local newspapers made big news with a write-up in The New York Times. The article covered our new model for small newspapers to become community-owned with a reader-powered newsroom and dozens of new individual investors.
We know it was big news because we got calls and emails all week, some from as far away as Ireland, Florida, Montana, Massachusetts, New York, Minnesota and all parts of California. The news coverage also spurred several people to walk into our newspaper office with investment checks in their hands.
The New York Times hubbub almost got in the way of some more important news. We’re not talking about more big news, we’re talking about what most people refer to as the little news, which is our specialty here, where we try to cover as many local comings and goings as we can.
All those phone calls, media inquiries, an impromptu radio interview and emails interrupted our weekly routine of typing up the local police logs, high school sports scores, the weather box and more.
We publish four different newspapers every Thursday (The Healdsburg Tribune, The Windsor Times, The Cloverdale Reveille and Sonoma West Times & News.) Last week we published 44 pages of local news and advertisements. Our digital news outlets — each newspaper has its own website — were busy as well, with all the news we print, plus expanded calendars, local business directories and more.
Compared to The New York Times, the mighty gray lady of journalism, our news output is smaller than small. The Times has 2,000 journalists, and we only have seven. But it’s all relative: maybe one person’s big news is small news to someone else, and vice versa.
There was another local small story in one of our newspapers last week that made big news. Sports Editor Greg Clementi’s article in The Healdsburg Tribune about Healdsburg High School cancelling its varsity football team was shared by national sports websites.
This makes us wonder whether some of the other small news stories we published last week might actually be big news as well. It’s still true that whenever anyone gets his or her photo or name in the newspaper it’s big news to them and their families. Lots of readers cut out these small news items and tack them on a bulletin board or refrigerator door.
We bet the photo and story about Maria Curiel, the city of Healdsburg’s retiring city clerk, got clipped out and saved a few times. Curiel was brought here by her parents at age 14 from Mexico. She had to learn English in high school. While attending junior college she went to work at the city, but she had to complete her U.S. citizenship before she could be appointed city clerk, a job she filled for 32 years.
We also reported last week on the passing of Suzi Schaffert, who resurrected the Monte Rio movie theater with her husband Don and turned it into a community center and youth employment center.
Several of our newspapers featured nine young women who attended a Tech Trek at Stanford University, sponsored by the local AAUW chapter.
There was another accomplished young woman on the front page of last week’s Windsor Times. Six-year-old Maya Via bested all other contestants at this year’s zucchini race at the Windsor Farmers’ Market. We’re sure the Via household thinks this is much bigger news than our write up in The New York Times.
We also spotlighted the many community contributions of Sebastopol’s Meg Mizutani, who was given a civic award by the city of Sebastopol through the “Locals Who Make A Difference” program.
We did publish a front page story last week in Windsor and Healdsburg that probably won’t make it in anyone’s scrapbook. The story was about Identity Evropa insignias posted on utility poles. Identity Evropa is a known alt-right white supremacist group.
Even The New York Times might think that’s big news, come to think of it, but we wish it never happened.
