||| FROM HILARY CANTY for ORCAS ISLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION |||
The cooler temperatures and foggy mornings are preparing us for the coming season. My canning pot is in heavy use as I prepare and put up salsa,sauces. pickles and jams to try to keep up with the abundance in the garden. This week, Buck Bay Shellfish has opened up their amazing garden to the community. They have ample veggies free for the picking. Such a generous offer!
There was an announcement this week about a consortium of Foundations rallying to support community journalism. The Press Forward Initiative strives to ‘re-center local news as a force for community cohesion; support new models and solutions that are ready to scale; and close longstanding inequities in journalism coverage and practice’.
It is unlikely that their efforts will reach as far as small rural communities such as ours. However, we are experiencing the effects of the scarcity of coverage. Many of you might remember Ted Grossman, a towering man with a resonant voice and a sharp wit. Ted was the editor, reporter, and janitor of The Sounder for many years. He spent hours attending public meetings, sporting events, and any activity that was important to record. When The Sounder was sold to a larger company and the business model changed to focus on generating revenue, Ted’s dedication and long hours were no longer a good fit.
The Sounder has continued and the company that owns it has been absorbed at least one more time since Ted’s days. Colleen Smith, the current editor, does a good job but is not provided the resources to cover the numerous meetings and events that occur each week. Occasionally she or Toby Cooper provide coverage, but most of the information published is submitted as press releases from the community. Lin McNulty keeps theOrcasonian, an online news blog, rolling, but she also lacks the resources to support a stable of reporters.
What have we lost? Quite a bit. We now read about elected commissions when they stumble. We don’t hear about the issues they are grappling with or the nuance of their decision-making. Relying on Facebook to keep current is not a great option. The Salish Current is a relatively new effort that covers the region, but it does not yet supply hyper local news.
Would our democracy be stronger if we had a robust local news source? Periodically there is a rumble about starting a local radio station or an alternative news source. What do you think? Is this something the community would be willing to take on? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Representative Deborah Lekenoff will be on Orcas Saturday. You can meet her at the Tidepool Coffee House starting at 8:30 a.m.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
Thank you, Hilary, for bringing up the critical subject of strengthening our community.
Here are some thoughts on why we need an online Orcas Island Directory now more than ever to counter recent factors of disunity.
Covid 19:
Three years of no community potlucks, dances, most meetings. In general a freeze on social contact and a subsequent, unfortunate, forming of new social habits that make staying at home the new normal. Many who moved here in those years did not need or be able to join in community affairs.
Technology: In recent years there has been an increased move away from telephone landlines to cell phones which has resulted in the decrease of listed phone numbers, hence a decreased ability to find or contact community members or businesses. The white pages directory for San Juan County went from 90 pages in 2016 to 44 pages in 2023, the yellow pages from 131 to 70. The phonebook is no longer a dependable directory to our community.
The local newspapers are barely surviving against online advertising, multiple social media sites and multiple organizational and personal sites. None of these are universally read, always accurate or related to our local needs. The newspaper is no longer the main source of our community news.
Looming disruptions to our usual ways posed by increasing privacy paranoia, ferry service issues and global climate change make it prudent to be more connected as a community, to have a trusted, central source of information to be better able to coordinate and direct our resources for our mutual benefit.
We really need to counter these disunifying forces. An online directory of our community’s members, businesses and resources and a common source of information is a crucial first step to bring us back together. All existing local sites and individuals could be listed, a true inventory of the Orcas community.
As to how to fund and secure the longevity of an Orcas online directory, we would need input from those who are tech savvy to determine the amount of time/work to monitor or otherwise administer it. In a “normal” community that job could be a part of the local government, but since there is no Orcas government it would have to be added initially to an existing community organization like the Chamber of Commerce or Opalco or the OICF or the Senior Center or the Historical Museum or the Library or the County or the Orcasonian or maybe as a separate Orcas Community co-op.
Funding could be by sponsors, subscribers (business or personal), grants from OICF or the County, or as a part of the normal activities of whichever entity that sponsors it.
A first step in pursuing this idea is for each of us to consider the potential benefits to our lives of having a reliable directory to find everyone and every resource and the latest Orcas news and events all on one site. Consider what it would mean to once again find a neighbor or a business or to post your organization’ fund raiser event or know what the current ferry or road or fire situation is.
The next step would be to continue the conversation.