Tuesday, October 13, 2009 9:08 PM CDT
OUR VIEW: It's average people who keep your paper yours
By the JG/T-C Editorial Board
editorial@jg-tc.com
Dalias Price never had an official title with the Mattoon Journal Gazette and Charleston Times-Courier.
He didn’t go by “editor” or “publisher” or “staff writer.” He was identified as this area’s local weather observer via occasional stories on unusual weather conditions, but most of his work for JG/T-C readers was uncredited and unpaid. Few readers knew his name as the one behind the daily temperature observations, sunrise/sunset statistics and the log of record highs and lows.
Carl Lebovitz also contributed to the newspapers for many years, and his name may be more recognizable to readers since his byline and photo did appear with his theater reviews. He also compiled the entertainment calendar for years, often with no byline at all.
For many years, Mary Jane Coartney wrote a weekly column for the JG/T-C, sometimes punctuated with poetry, about common, ordinary things. She most likely considered herself a common, ordinary person writing about average things — family memories, local happenings, wildlife sightings — for the average person.
Price, who provided local weather statistics each day for many years until January 2008, died recently; Lebovitz and Coartney also both passed away in recent months. The movement of their lives into the passage of time — where all of us one day will go — is a reminder to us of the value of average people contributing so many seemingly little things to keep your local newspaper one-of-a-kind.
Every day, it’s contributors like these who help make your JG/T-C something completely unique, with local tidbits that can’t be found elsewhere.
Each day, Alice Larrabee offers Glancing Back, a trip through time to re-live — or experience for the first time — highlights in local and area history. This contribution by Alice is one of the mainstays of the JG/T-C Opinions page. Each Monday, the local My Amish Home comes to readers from nearby Arthur, where Millie Otto gives insight into the lives of Old Order Amish folks.
Dave Shadow contributes to the Outdoors page each Friday with his column. On Saturdays, readers are treated to a history lesson with local ties from Hal Malehorn, who portrays Alfred Balch at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.
Cameron Craig and students at the Eastern Illinois University Weather Center have provided local weather data since Price discontinued his reporting a year and nine months ago at age 94.
These folks aren’t professional journalists. They aren’t full-time paid employees of the JG/T- C — some, in fact, have provided their services for years to readers at no cost whatsoever.
It’s people like these who help make your local newspaper just that: yours, and local. They add to the local news, sports and features reporting that the JG/T-C staff provides each day. These days, anyone can log on to the Web and get national, international and other news from afar. These local folks, with the JG/T-C as a platform, can give their neighbors a view that often seems as if it’s from their own front porch.
If we are wise, we appreciate these kinds of community pillars now, today. We won’t wait until they are gone to realize their value in our everyday lives. They don’t seek the spotlight, but that makes their contributions no less worthy of it.
We salute these and all those who keep your hometown newspaper feeling like “home.”
— JG/T-C Editorial Board
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GrampaC wrote on Oct 22, 2009 5:27 PM:
What racial innuendo? She slanged me a racist!
You are the one whom is almost always citing tones of ethnic barriers!
Try not mentioning the "R" word in one of your expert analysis. It's hard, isn't it? "