Voices

This blog posting is fashioned from an opinion piece I wrote for the local newspaper – Village Chronicles. We have the obvious challenge of engaging each community covered so the paper’s voice for that community is representative of its citizenry. We don’t make things up. We report on what is happening. Better yet, we provide the opportunity for each community to voice their own ideas without much interference form us.  See for yourself:

Our Role

A newspaper is a reflection of the voices contained within the community it serves. Voices. Yours and your neighbor’s. The paper should be representative of those voices. Some are majority thoughts, others are lesser so. Each is of value, though. They form the whole of our voice and conversation in and among the community.

In the case of the Village Chronicles, three communities are reflected. That makes it a little confusing to the reader not of the community the article is focused on.

Our name itself – Village Chronicles – was chosen for two specific reasons. First, we wished to value the communal nature of living in a community, any community. The word village itself conjures a meaning and feeling of smallness, of connectedness and of shared life. Warrenville is a city, but a small one. It contains a sense of small town America and we wanted to echo that characteristic. And of any community the paper attempted to cover.

Second, we wanted to reach out to nearby towns and perhaps become their small town newspaper as well. Winfield is incorporated as a village and contains the sensibility and family nature of a village.

In a lesser way West Chicago is more complicated, larger (its population exceeds that of Warrenville and Winfield combined) and contains an economic identify far different from the other towns. In fact each of the communities has far different economies from the others.  But it is that diversity that interests the Village Chronicles. Differentness is not a negative; rather it is a positive. Alone each town stands on its own. As neighbors, though, they stand together and prosper in subtle shared ways.

And that is something the newspaper hopes to showcase over time. Each of the three communities are unique and lead separate lives. Yet there are similarities each shares with the others because of being in the same county, the nearness of our economies, the commonality of our topography. Different but if not in the same boat at least in the same flotilla!

Three libraries. Each has its own ‘brand’ of service to its community. Each shares its services and programs with the paper, some in greater detail, some in much less detail. Same with park districts. One shares a lot about its doings, while the other two are spare in their sharing. Town governance is another variable. The Village of Winfield share very little officially. West Chicago contributes lots of news, not all of which can be accommodated by the paper’s tight space availability. Warrenville’s city government is well covered, but that’s because we have locals who volunteer their services to that end.

No volunteers have stepped forward in West Chicago, just city staff. In Winfield a volunteer group emerged at long last but there are those who feel their voice is not representative of the village. We would not know. That is the role of the community itself. If there are voices to be heard, where are they? The staff? Elected officials? Other volunteers, institutions and organizations?

A community is not made up of its political ideologies. It is made up of its churches, neighborhoods, libraries, fire districts, park districts, schools and all of the families who interact with those institutions. Each person has a story to tell. Each person has something to share that reflects well on the community. Why are these stories not being heard? Not because the paper bars them. We simply have not received them.

Same is true for West Chicago.

Yet we are confident there are those of you who have a good reflection on what the community is doing and what it means to fellow residents.

Won’t you step forward and offer your help to best form the voice of each community?

If you don’t, who will? And how will they represent your community? Fairly? Objectively? Where will your chips fall? Will it be a pleasant voice? Or an angry one. Will it be persuasive or condemning?

Or constructive? That’s the challenge. How do we build our community day by day, year by year, idea by idea? We think not via shouting and invective. Rather calm reasoned discussion.  We hope you agree and will join the voices.

I’ll let you know how this editorial/opinion piece played out. It should be interesting!

April 23, 2014