How To Make A Newspaper: Part III

I n 2007, a young man with lots of optimism and no experi- ence started a newspaper called Blue Mountain News.

(OK, I was already old enough to join AARP, but you're as young as you feel. And being optimistic and mostly clueless made me feel younger.)

Blue Mountain News lasted five years and it was great fun to produce. And for the most part it was well received. It definitely gave me lots of good ex- perience.

I decided to start BMN, in part, because I love newspapers.

I've read them enthusi- astically all my life. When I go to a new town, the first thing I do is find a newspaper.

While many news- papers cover towns and cities, like Dayton and Waitsburg, or Seattle, or New York, others focus on subjects like horses, cars, computers or health care.

Like the people who read them, newspapers come in all shapes, siz- es and colors. Some are lively and fun; others are bitter and cranky. Some newspapers are colorful and bright, while others are dull and dowdy. Some are smart and thought-provoking. And, quite frankly, some are pretty dumb.

But all newspapers represent an effort by their creators to pass on knowledge, information and opinion. And that's (usually) a good thing. The best local newspapers give their readers a wide variety of experiences - everything from crime to crosswords. (Stay tuned on that.)

Newspapers are busi- nesses, of course, with bills to pay. That gives those of us who produce them added motivation to make them the best can be, so that readers will pay to read them and advertis- ers will pay to advertise in them.

During 2012 I worked for several months as a re- porter for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, covering much the same beat that The Times covers.

This was valuable ex- perience, because it allowed me to see how a newspaper that I didn't start from scratch was run.

So that makes my new stint at The Times my third shot at helping make a newspaper.

My focus as the new editor of The Times will be to maintain the wide variety of good things this paper has done for a long time, and hopefully add a few new things to make it even better.

I've lived in the Touchet Valley for more than 16 years and I've grown to love it. It's full of won- derful people doing great things, and our paper will be devoted to telling you more about them and what they're doing.

We'll continue to bring you stories from schools, businesses and govern- ment offices. And we'll tell you about fun places to go and things to do.

The news isn't always good, of course, and The Times will also continue to report on crime as it happens, and disputes and disagreements as they in- evitably occur.

But, as an important part of our communities, we want our newspaper to be a strong contributor to making the Touchet Val- ley a better place.

A big thank you goes out to Imbert Mathee, The Times' owner and publisher, for giving me the opportunity to lead its editorial staff.

I look forward to put- ting out many good news- papers in the coming weeks and years.

I invite readers to con- tact me any time they have questions or concerns about something they read in The Times.

And for sure let me know if you have ideas of things we could report on or things we could do better.