Welcome to this week’s editorial,
You may have noticed (or not) that this week’s edition is Volume Number 200.
To some that might seem a low number and to others the numbering of the editions of the Beagle Weekender might appear a useless endeavour but for me the numbering is important.
It is important because it reminds me, in this case, that I have delivered without fail, for the last 200 weeks, your Friday mailout edition of the Beagle Weekender that, to my mind, celebrates the community we live in and seeks to inform and include the community in local news, views and events.
The numbering is also important as the Beagle Weekender is archived with the NSW State Library, playing its small roll in documenting the history of the times. With local news now mostly on-line and behind paywalls the task of capturing the day to day changes in our community and wider society are rapidly diminishing. For those who enjoy thumbing their way through the archives of local history we enjoy the scanned images of newspapers from yesterday on TROVE. But today’s news papers are not scanned and the digital records of most publishers are not kept.
When I established The Beagle four years ago I recognised the vital role that local news has in informing and including its community. The importance of celebrating who we are. Documenting the warp and the weft.
As you look over scanned newspapers of yesteryear in TROVE they too celebrated the community and offer a wonderful insight of who we were. They also document the journey and reveal how far we have come.
The Beagle is a community driven news source. I might be its editor but it is the community who drive it with their contributions, the many media releases and the continued stream of suggestions, tips and whistleblowing that require investigation, reporting and followup.
Two hundred Friday’s in a row, sitting at a laptop compiling the Beagle Weekender, passing on what I can of all the news and items that pour in each week.
I thank all the advertisers, sponsors and donors who help keep this shoestring venture afloat. I thank all the contributors who share the passion they have for their activities, crafts and interests and I especially thank the bulk of councillors and senior Council executive for their continued attempts at subterfuge, their poorly choreographed stumbling duplicity, their entertaining overt ineptitudes and their continued failures at providing any evidence of openness, transparency or even representation. Without them The Beagle would be far less entertaining.
Until next
lei
