Opinion : An editor\'s favorite story (and one more word of thanks)

Here’s my favorite story about my job, although technically, it has absolutely nothing at all to do with any story I ever wrote:

A few years ago, when there were just two granddaughters (we now have four), my daughter took them in their stroller to a Vinton barber shop as they accompanied their father to his haircut.

Another woman in the room – someone my daughter had never met before – looked at the babies, and then at Bethany. Then she pointed to the stroller.

“Hey,” she said. “Those are Dean’s granddaughters.”

That woman knew that those cute little blond toddlers are my granddaughters because I have been fortunate enough to work in a community where everybody knows just about everybody, with a schedule flexible enough for me to hang out often with those girls.

Every day I get up to go to work, knowing how lucky and blessed I am to be doing what I do among people I know well. And I love the way I get do it, whom I do it for, and the terms of the deal.

This field of journalism is changing, and some of the people I admired and worked with when I wrote my first story 23 years ago this month have long ago moved on to jobs in other career fields. People who gave me advice about journalism are now not writing for a living. One of them – a guy whose hilarious column was once sent all over the country – is now doing PR for an Iowa grocery store chain. He does it better than anyone has ever done PR for a grocery store chain, but still, he’s writing about selling vegetables.

Many of my friends have left journalism for other fields.

They say they are happy, but it’s sad.

And the trend is nationwide.

One of California’s biggest newspapers, the Orange County Register, is now asking reporters to get up early in the morning to deliver the papers before going to work to write the stories for the next day’s edition. Those who do so receive gift cards. That same paper also assigns reporters to take calls from people who have not received their paper.

The newspaper industry has lost 40 percent of its revenue since 2005, reported the New York Times. And, in the words of journalist Alan Mutter, many companies responded by trimming staffing and benefits. “These actions, however, tend to degrade the quality of the product, which likely will disappoint readers and repel advertisers, thus accelerating the industry’s decline,” says Mutter.

Five years ago, we began an experiment – something that as far as I can tell, had never been done successfully before, has only been done one other time in Iowa since we began Vinton Today.

You already know the story of how we set out to build a news outlet without the help of any news organization. We were not sure how well it would work.

Now, we know. Thanks to our network of readers, contributors of stories and photos and story ideas, and dozens of advertisers who have supported us every month for years, we created a site that brings you local news. People tell us they get the most news from Vinton Today, and that they get it first here.

“You have a gift and a purpose,” said one of our new friends, someone who reads with interest our most recent stories.

Countless times in the past several years – and several times in the past few weeks – big-city newspapers and TV stations have passed on news that they found out by reading Vinton Today.

While I am the guy who gets the byline on the big stories (and the phone calls when something needs corrected!), this is truly a community effort. Every day, someone from the Vinton area – many people on most days – helps us pass on news. Whether it’s sharing a photo from an event they attended, or passing on something important they heard from a friend or at a meeting, local readers are part of our team.

We are winding down our annual fund-raising campaign. We just wanted to thank you for your generosity. We started out with the goal of creating a news web site this is all free, all the time, for anyone, anywhere.

Our advertisers and donors have made it possible for us to continue this mission throughout 2015 and well beyond.

It’s been five years since we sat around the table, wondering if this venture would work.

Every day, you show us it does. Every day you help it succeed.

Thanks, again.