Some people `have’ to write
The Front Page going strong one year later
The Front Page
Morning Update
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
By Ken Tingley
Some people like to write, but others “have” to write.
That’s what I tried to explain to my readers a year ago when I started writing this newsletter - The Front Page - with a post titled “Time to get back in the game.”
When I retired in July 2020, I immersed myself in two book-writing projects. “The Last American Editor” - a collection of my columns from The Post-Star - came out in August 2021. My second book - “The Last American Newspaper” - is a memoir about the value of local community journalism. It recounts all the the great journalism done at The Post-Star over a two-decade span. More importantly, it asks the question: Who does that journalism in the future? It will be released sometime this spring.
Editors and columnists are always thinking about what to write next. As soon as a column is done, they are already thinking about ideas for the next column. After retiring, I wrote a couple of guest essays for the newspaper, a few letters to the editor and posted some lengthy opinions on social media.
It apparently wasn’t enough.
In November 2020, my son accepted a job with the National Park Service in Texas and we embarked on a week-long cross-county trip in the midst of the pandemic. I posted daily updates on Facebook from the road about what we saw and what I was feeling about my boy moving to Texas. I heard from lots of my readers. But more importantly, it told me how much I missed the daily process of writing and connecting with the community around me.
A colleague tipped me off to a new platform - substack.com - where you could write commentary or news and publish it yourself. It also had a paid model where you could get paid for your work.
One year ago today, I published my first substack.com commentary and emailed it to five people. I certainly did not know what I was getting myself into.
In that one year, I have written 197 newsletters. Generally speaking I wrote about 90 columns a year at the newspaper.
The newsletter allowed me to once again weigh in on my personal life, promote my books, comment on the local community around me and criticize the politicians when they were doing wrong.
I’ve settled into a routine of writing a newsletter every other day - even while on the road on vacation. I’m enjoying it and readers continue to subscribe and comment. I thank all of you for sticking with me for this new adventure.
The reason for substack.com was to provide writers with a way to make money off their writing without having to count on a low-paying publisher. If you could build up an audience that was willing to pay for your writing, you could make money. Maybe even make a living.
Subscriptions have grown steadily for me over the first year. I suspect most of my readers still don’t know about the newsletter. At some point, I may even begin charging for it, but that is not why I started writing it.
Part of it is community service, but basically it is because I MUST write.
Horse racing series
The Times Union series on the horse racing industry continued over the weekend addressing the cozy relationship between the state and the horse racing industry, especially when it came to adequately funding enforcement of the rules.
For anyone that loves going to Saratoga and watching the thoroughbreds, this is a must read and an eye-opener.
More importantly, it shows the state’s ability to turn a blind eye when there are millions of dollars of revenue at stake.
New maps bad
The Legislature went ahead and approved the gerrymandered election maps proposed by the Democratic majority. It certainly was a defeat for doing the right thing.
The Democrats had a couple of justifications for their actions. They pointed out that Republicans in other states were doing the same thing or worse. And one member of the Legislature offered up that this version of the election districts was correcting previously gerrymandered districts by Republicans.
It doesn’t matter who does it, it is a setback for democracy and the intentions of the Founding Fathers.
Sports Saturday
The Post-Star sports department - Greg Brownell and Pete Tobey - did an incredible job covering an impossible number of local sporting events on Saturday.
Pete covered the Section II wrestling championships at the Cool Insuring Arena before heading out that night to cover the Adirondack League boys basketball championship game.
Greg Brownell covered the girls Adirondack League title game - and also took a photo of the boys game - before getting back to the office to finish the production for the section.
There was a time when that amount of work was done by six or seven people.
These two went above and beyond the call of duty.
Greenwich event
My next book event at the Greenwich Public Library is back on the calendar for March 10. Joe Donohue and I will have a conversation about newspapers, community journalism, my new books and who knows what else. It should be an interesting evening.
Stay tuned for further details.
Tweets of the Day
I look forward to your blog and enjoy reading them, even when I disagree with you on some issue. That's just another reason I enjoy it as it makes me think and see things from a different perspective. Keep em coming! Thank you!
Please don't ever stop writing.