Fans of the “Harry Potter” series will recall the jinx placed on Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts professors — a spell calculated to prevent anyone from holding that teaching post at the school for longer than one year.
That’s a bit what it feels like here at The Monitor’s world headquarters. As you read in last week’s issue, our latest editor, Charlie Denison, has left Boulder and Jefferson County. For those keeping score, that makes four editors for The Monitor in a bit less than five years.
I’d like to unpack this apparent curse and explain how we’re responding. But first:
Thank you, Charlie.
Charlie came to The Monitor with many years of reporting experience in Glendive and Lewistown, but he had never been an editor before. He learned how the hard way — by getting an issue out the door every Wednesday. The path was sometimes rocky, but by this summer, his papers were consistently strong – packed with urgent news and entertaining features.
More important, Charlie understood instinctively what it meant to be a community newspaper. His was a warm and consistently welcoming presence in Boulder. He listened to people, made them feel comfortable, and earned their trust. He invited them to join in our world, and he in turn joined theirs. The Monitor became richer for that.
Also, he’s a great musician. If you haven’t experienced Depot Hill (“Boulder’s loudest band”), check it out this Saturday at Boulder Hot Springs.
I’m also grateful for Eliza McLaughlin, The Monitor’s north-county reporter since last spring, who recently departed to join the field staff of Sen. Steve Daines. This was Eliza’s first job in journalism, and she attacked it with zeal. She explained the intricacies of the Montana Tunnels bankruptcy and Clancy’s ongoing water saga, and profiled North County luminaries such as Sherry Zipperian and Lisa Ernst. She took us adventuring, chronicling her first deer hunt (it didn’t end well) and fishing and side-by-side trips with thoughtfulness and verve.
Little-known fact: Eliza also is a talented editor. She knows every inch of AP Style. She corrected my endless Oxford commas. One day, we will work for her.
All that said, as of now, The Monitor has no permanent newsroom staff. I’m aware that we may well have become the butt of jokes at The Windsor, or elsewhere. (How many Monitor editors does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two: One to screw in the bulb, and a second to hold the door open as the first leaves.)
And to the point, our revolving door poses not just an immediate logistical challenge — like, we have a paper to produce, now — but also a graver existential one: How will The Monitor provide lasting value to the community it serves when it can’t keep journalists? How can we hope to build trust with folks? How can we understand what issues are important to them? How will we tell stories that are appropriately nuanced and, you know, accurate?
That’s what’s keeping me up at night.
For now, I am stepping in as interim editor. And fortunately, I have found a terrific interim team. Kate Austin Payne, whose profile of dowser Nancy Alley graces our front page, is a rising junior at Carroll College. She is deeply curious and a gifted writer. She grew up in the Helena Valley, is a passionate outdoorsperson and has many friends across our county.
Kate will be a full-time reporter at least through year-end. And two former Monitor summer interns have returned to contribute stories as freelancers: Kasey Faur recently was a reporter at The Standard in Butte; and Scott Ferguson is an English and journalism teacher at Jefferson High.
Meanwhile, I’m looking for a new editor. Again. Check out the job description on our website, boulder-monitor.com: It is a seriously great gig.
But I’m coming to understand that the way I’ve been approaching this role – and, perhaps, the way I’ve thought about publishing a local paper — may just be…wrong.
Local journalism is a wonderful enterprise in many ways: It offers endless opportunities to explore humanity, and to tell stories that can help readers better navigate the world and their future.
But the reality is that fewer and fewer people are interested in working somewhat crazy hours for relatively little money to produce news for a medium in decline. Decades of newspapers closures and cost-cutting have forced many talented people from the profession, and young journalism school grads are more likely to gravitate toward online media or broadcast.
It doesn’t help that Boulder, like an increasing number of rural communities, is becoming financially out of reach for professionals who — like teachers, and nurses, and police officers — make just enough to call themselves middle class but not enough to afford reasonable housing.
This is not an isolated problem, of course. Many employers are scrambling to find employees of all sorts, and small newspapers across the state are facing dilemmas similar to that of The Monitor.
Some of my fellow publishers have responded by recruiting local talent. If trained journalists won’t come to their communities, or won’t stay, these news organizations look for people, already rooted there, who don’t have any experience as reporters but do bring inquiring minds and some measure of civic spunk. Those community members are becoming the backbones of local news organizations.
I’m thinking that some version of that approach is the way to go. I have often referred here to our readers as the de facto “owners” of The Monitor. It’s probably time to make that real — to create an entity that’s actually owned, stewarded and run by the same people it serves. That is, you.
Want to help me think this through? I’d love your input. Drop me a note at keith@boulder-monitor.com. And as always, I’m grateful for your support.
