Here is my edition of Register Watch™ for the October 30th issue of my town’s local, weekly newspaper, the Whitewater Register. In my small town of 14,000, the Register is the only conventional newspaper. There are several nearby newspapers, a college newspaper, a local website with entries that a local politician publishes, and a few shopper-advertisers.
There are also a few blogs, of which FREE WHITEWATER is one.
We have no daily hometown newspaper – online or in print – that amounts to true journalism by adhering to standard journalistic ethics. (See, from October 19th, Press Ethics for fundamental journalistic standards from the Associated Press.)
I wish that we did; nothing would improve our small society more effectively than true journalism. Our politics would be better, as the standard of public conduct – subjected to constant press scrutiny — would have to be higher.
Until then, I offer occasional commentary on the weekly newspaper that bears our town’s name.
The front page of the October 30th Register has two different, above-the-fold stories: one on efforts to market our downtown business district, and one on our school board’s approval of a tax levy increase.
Downtown Whitewater, Inc., the body that represents downtown business owners, has unveiled a new logo – a triangle in the shape of the district. The group would like to market the area under the slogan, “The Triangle: Eat – Shop – Enjoy.”
The article in the Register notes that details including color and signage are yet to be made final. I am often critical of logo changes as a substitute for substantive policy, but marketing is an integral, not a peripheral, part of this sort of organization. (Obvious contrasts – logos for schools, hospitals, public policy groups, etc.)
I think there’s little question that a name other than “Downtown Whitewater” would help catch people’s notice. Most towns call their commercial district the downtown, and there’s nothing distinctive about the term.
How all this will develop, especially if a lingering recession through 2009 should make marketing more difficult, one cannot say.
It’s a good idea, though, and one hopes for the best.
There’s another above-the-fold story: “School Board OKs Tax Levy Increase.” Well, that’s different – there was little meaningful coverage of district policy under the Register‘s last editor.
How much of this might have gone unreported, or given only hideaway coverage, if that prior approach had continued? I don’t know.
The Register reports, in the first paragraph, a tax levy increase of 7.11%.
I have long held off — some have said too long – from consistent coverage of our school district. There are no excuses on my part; one either writes or does not. In this regard, the Register‘s ahead of my blogging.
The first part of the story is a direct recitation of budget and tax information. There’s much more to say about all this, but reporting on these these basic figures is what any community deserves, and should expect.
Below the fold is a story on the Whitewater Arts Alliance’s 2008 Holiday Card Winner. The winning selection shows two deer looking in the direction of Whitewater’s old train depot, the ground covered with snow. It’s an attractive scene, from a local artist.
Some have wrongly said that I see no beauty in this city. The claim is false; I contend and debate over a small, but worthy, place. It will be far lovelier, too, when its politics and culture are freer, more honest, more respectful of civil liberties. Art is, to my mind, no substitute for these needed reforms, but I easily see its independent worth.
There is even now, though, great beauty in the city. I am surely neither the artist nor the photographer to capture any of it. I have taken fewer pictures of Whitewater than I might like, but there is no loss to aesthetics in that.
That the winning selection is an attractive depiction is, on its own, praiseworthy.