Hello, Lebanon!
It’s my great pleasure to announce the arrival of the Lebanon Local, a monthly newspaper that The New Era staff has been busily preparing to publish here. Since most of our efforts have been concentrated in Sweet Home until now, it would probably be good to start by introducing ourselves.
My wife Miriam and I have owned and operated The New Era newspaper in Sweet Home since 2005 and we have a dedicated staff, who have helped make it a thriving community source of news and information.
Our goal has been simple: serve our community, first and foremost. I think the majority of our readership would agree that we’ve successfully accomplished that.
So why Lebanon? We’re embarking on this because we are convinced that Lebanon residents want local news that’s interesting and informative, and serves community needs.
I’ve worked in newspaper journalism since 1980. One of the reasons I am still in this business, currently as publisher of The New Era, is that I believe communities need newspapers –particularly in smaller communities like Lebanon – even in today’s world of widely available sources of information.
Newspapers can provide a source of reliable, faithful reporting on local government and school activities, local events, local human-interest stories, etc. Newspapers can – and should – also provide a watchdog function that’s very important in every community.
One thing I want to make very clear: This paper is not going to be a rehash of our Sweet Home newspaper. They will be two very separate entities, covering two independent communities, except in cases where there might be legitimate common interest in a particular story that would be worthy of running in both (such as our report on page 1 of today’s issue about Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital’s new Surgery Department).
The Lebanon Local will be a newspaper focused entirely on Lebanon and its interests.
In our 11 years operating Sweet Home’s newspaper, we have become increasingly convinced that there’s still plenty of room in people’s lives for the kind of newspaper described above.
There’s never been a lack of interest in local news stories that pertain to our community. I’m convinced that if we serve our readers and advertisers well, good things will happen. I’ve seen it happen.
In a community like Lebanon (as is also true of Sweet Home), I believe that it’s critical that the newspaper maintains a healthy connection with its readers.
We’ll be looking for opportunities to make that happen, to get involved, to be present in other ways than just reporting or providing local businesses with ways to get their messages out to the community.
That staff I mentioned earlier is experienced. On the editorial (news) side, we total well over half a century of experience in this field.
All the reporting and design work we do on your newspaper is done by people who live in Linn County – locally. That’s important to us.
In a monthly format, obviously, we won’t be able to cover everything we’d like to, but we will do our best to jam as much as possible into each edition. There will be things that would be difficult to cover in a monthly newspaper – high school sports, for example – but we will focus on things we can do well and progress from there.
We don’t have a physical presence in Lebanon yet, but our people are already working in town. We want to tell as many stories as we can, so if you would like to let us know about something you think could be news, please e-mail us at [email protected] or call us at (541) 367-2136.
Though our print edition is a monthly, we will be posting news and community updates at our website, www.lebanonlocalnews.com.
Initially, we’re distributing the newspaper to you by mail so you can get a feel for it without having to go look for it on a newsstand. In the next couple of months, we will make it available at points around Lebanon where you will be able to easily access it, and we also have subscription opportunities available for those who want to receive it at home, as indicated below.
We want to give you news that helps you understand Lebanon – its issues, its solutions to those issues, its people and its activities.
We want you to know what’s going on.
That’s why we do journalism.