Journalism may have to return to its roots like in Fourth Lake

Anonymous hate mail still findings its way to my mailbox three years later

By Ken Tingley

Julie Hutchinson ran out the cabin to greet me before I could even get the car out of gear.

“Finally, we get to meet,” Julie shrieked.

One of my books had brought us together. Last September, Julie fired off an email about how much she loved my book “The Last American Newspaper.” She said it reminded her of her own experiences in the newspaper business in Colorado.

That day, she wrote she took just a quick break to make dinner before immediately going back to read the book.

Julie later contacted me about speaking to the Denver Press Association. The event never came off, but I heard from Julie again a few weeks ago. She wanted me to speak at the Fourth Lake Homeowners Association. At first, I thought Julie wanted me to come to Denver again, forgetting that Fourth Lake is just up the road, sort of a suburb of Lake Luzerne.

So this week, we finally met for the first time.

Julie had previously worked for The Daily Camera in Boulder while her husband was a veteran of the Rocky Mountain News.

They asked me to join them for dinner before I spoke Friday along with some friends and conversation came easily.

Julie said it was their first dinner party of the summer.

We don’t do many dinner parties in these parts, at least not many where I get invited. It was leisurely dining with corn from Kinderhook (one of the guests had driven up from there) and roast lamb with the eight of us getting to know each other.

Julie reminded me she reached out to me four or five years ago to free lance some articles for The Post-Star while summering at Fourth Lake. I had forgotten about that earlier correspondence.

I’ve lived here since 1988, but can’t remember even catching a glimpse of Fourth Lake despite dozens of trips to Lake Luzerne. I learned the community has a history dating back to the 1920s. Members produced a newsletter, held square dances and invited speakers at their community center.

Julie showed me their beautiful little lake, its beach and the old-fashioned community center that reminded me of the summer camp I went to years ago.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the homeowners association, the Fourth Lakers initiated a commemorative scrapbook with Julie leading the way and dozens of families contributing photos from summers past. The final product was more history book than scrapbook and ended up being a weighty hard-cover volume.

Inside those pages, I found references to the Fourth Lake Clarion, the newsletter produced by Fourth Lakers. It struck a chord with me because I’ve been preaching for the past year how newspapers are the glue that hold communities together.

When I spoke Friday, I told the 40 or so Fourth Lakers the Clarion seems to have been the glue holding their summer community together for more than a century now.

The summer edition of the Fourth Lake Clarion.

The summer edition of The Clarion was seven pages long and reported the news of weddings, births and passings. One couple was knocking down its cabin to build another after Labor Day and there was an article reporting how residents would be testing the quality of their water for the first time.

After my presentation Friday, there was more great conversation, concern about newspapers and questions about the future of the business.

We talked about nonprofit business models and readers being adaptable to digital products, but it seemed to me, the Fourth Lakers already had part of their solution with “The Clarion.”

If we believe the news is important - no, that it is essential - then maybe we will see the rise of small neighborhood newsletters and journals to keep us informed about our friends and neighbors.

It would be a return to our roots.

The Fourth Lakers already are a step ahead of us.

When not listening to authors, the Fourth Lakers often have square dancing at their community center.

Transparency

So many of our institutions are becoming less and less transparent.

In Lake Luzerne, the local library board went into executive session and refused to say why as required by the state Open Meetings Law. A board can only meet secretly under certain situations - personnel issues, contract negotiations for instance - but the board must identify the reason they are meeting secretly.

The Lake Luzerne board did not do that.

It is also not allowed to take votes in executive session.

When The Post-Star asked board president Janet Silburn if it had made any decisions in the meeting, Silburn would not say.

If people are going to protest anything in Lake Luzerne, they should start with the lack of transparency by the library board.

Murder, suicide

There was a shooting in Queensbury last week and the Warren County Sheriff’s Office was not very forthcoming with information.

By Sunday, we still did not who was shot, who died and what if any motive was known.

Police agencies all across the region are becoming more and more secretive. Police blotter information is public information. Police should tell what they know when they know it and stop hiding behind vague press releases.

The basic facts of the shooting should be released as quickly as possible for the public to digest. Releasing those facts certainly would not have imperiled any investigation the police were doing.

Remembering me

I got a letter in the mail Friday from a reader, or maybe a past reader is more accurate.

It was “hate mail.”

The person blamed me for the demise of The Post-Star and its recent move to publishing just three days a week.

What the person didn’t seem to realize was that I had not worked at the newspaper since my retirement three years ago.

But it was nice to be remembered.