Ruralite Cafe: Published 10/03/02

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Here at The Herald, we depend on your news

I did field more than the usual number of questions regarding deadlines and submissions to the paper, and it occurred to me that a lot of you may not know how much we depend on you.

A weekly newspaper is a shared endeavor, and we need all our readers to make it a successful one. While you may not think much about The Herald before it arrives in your mailbox every Thursday (or at your favorite store each Wednesday night), we all think about you.

Putting this paper out every week is a lot of work, and we couldnıt do it without your help. With apologies to a former first lady, "it takes a community to put out a newspaper."

It takes all your family news - engagements, weddings, births, awards, graduations and scholarships - and it takes your church, club and neighborhood news. We (news staff) provide the local government coverage by attending almost every meeting our elected officials hold - even with the recent propensity of different boards to schedule their sessions on the same nights.

So where do you fit into this equation? You send us much of the information that goes into each issue. We print all announcements of upcoming events such as singings, homecomings, decorations, benefits and special church services the week we receive them - as long as they are at The Herald office by noon Monday. Getting all the information for a given issue on Monday helps us plan and affords us the time we need to do our best work. Due to space constraints, we can only announce each item one time; however, in most cases you can decide whether it appears one or two weeks prior to your event.

Your submissions can be typed or handwritten. They can be brought by our Main Steet office or mailed, and we have a drop box for your convenience after hours and on weekends.

Feel free to email your submissions to us. Send all notices intended for publication to our general newsroom mail box (news@thesylvaherald.com). There is no need to send it to anyoneıs attention - the "news" address is the one we always check for timely information that belongs in the newspaper.

However you choose to contact us, please include a daytime telephone number in case we need clarification. We consider all information carefully before it is printed, and there is never a charge for any news item.

Bear in mind that due to our ongoing effort to provide a more organized newspaper, we donıt always use a particular item the week we receive it. We hold most student recognitions, whether awards, graduation, deanıs list, honor roll or class field trips, to publish together on a "School Days" page. Health-related items appear every other week on our "To Your Health" pages, and Cooperative Extension and homemakersı club news is grouped on our weekly "Farm and Home" page.

If you have an idea for a story, or know of an interesting person in your community, call and tell us about it. Things that interest you most likely will interest us, too, and we enjoy hearing from you.

Weıve made a number of technological leaps in recent years, but we want to assure all of you that our 76-year-old values are not about to change.

Our priority remains publishing information about Jackson County people, places and events. Though weıve added "Regional Notes" and expanded "Things and Stuff" to enable us to include brief notices about area events, achievements of former residents and relatives of current residents, we are proudest of the amount and variety of in-county news we include in each weekıs edition.

Putting out an interesting weekly newspaper in todayıs age of instant information is a challenge we welcome and work hard to achieve. But we realize itıs all of you who make it possible.

We appreciate your support.

Back to Archive: 10/03/02.