Alexander Leach, Editor
I’ve been doing this for exactly a year now. As of publication, I have made a full volume of issues. As of January 2, the publication date for this article, I have put together fifty-two issues.
I have to say, i was given a bit of a time to do this. Events are cancelled left and right, the ever-present irritation and fear of the pandemic putting a damper on summer fun. It meant I didn’t have to stress out too much with my time, but it also meant I couldn’t always rely on the community to provide the news for me.
When I started this, I took pictures of the students taking grad photos in the Cobden band shell. I got calls from places in the region I’d never been, wrote about virtual graduations, virtual delivery, farmer’s markets in the era of Spanish Flu 2: Electric Boogaloo (COVID-19, of course), and getting lost in the wide backroad of Whitewater Region.
As time’s gone on, I’ve started to see some important issues, gotten some letters, some feedback, some criticism, some spam messages from skeevy websites. I’ve wandered into events with a camera and a notepad and started snapping and writing, I’ve talked to people all over the valley, and I’ve gotten quite good at my route.
I’m not the best journalist, to be frank. Journalism requires a degree of passion that belies how you’re doing an important job that many people don’t value, and doesn’t bring in any money. With online media centralizing to the biggest picture for the biggest engagement on social media, small papers are still going to be important, to keep the local events and actions that keep a region functioning in the public eye. And with large national stories like the many atrocities of the residential schools towards the First Nations and the ever-escalating climate apocalypse we’re living in giving us weather that Texas sees on a regular basis.
With arguments over Westmeath’s Cenotaph and complaints over Cobden’s water, I’ll likely have enough to work with even if every even gets cancelled. And with the census complete and my second foray into collecting data from strangers at its end, I’ll be back in the Jeep-branded saddle, delivering papers in the wooded slice of Canada that is the Whitewater Region.
Another year, then?
