By now we’ve all seen the Saturday Night Live bit.
We’ve seen the national news article shared on social media forums for the 100th time.
We know – the lights at Minnechaug Regional High School won’t turn off.
Many of our faithful and passionate readers have already known. After all, one of our most veteran journalists on staff, Sarah Heinonen, has been covering the topic since at least August of last year when the issue was brought up at a Wilbraham Board of Selectmen meeting.
But of course, still, when the story reached the national news, we got the question – “Why hasn’t our local news source covered this?” Well, the fact of the matter is, we have, and we did again on Jan. 3 when the topic of the lights was again at a Hampden-Wilbraham School Committee meeting. The problem is few got to see Sarah’s report.
That’s because I made a mistake.
In the production process for the Jan. 12 edition, I inadvertently omitted that story from our layout. It never made it to print. Upon realizing the error, we ensured that the story was posted on our website, but admittedly this is a time where I failed to meet our company’s mission of bringing our readers the information that is important to them. I get it – they’re your tax dollars. How and where your hard-earned money spent is about as personal as it gets. You deserve to know, but I messed up.
In the course of all of our lives and careers, no doubt, we’ve had slip-ups, gaffes, straight up screw ups. For most, those go unseen and/or unnoticed by the public. But in this industry, your errors are there for public consumption, under a spotlight or a microscope an any given time. Beyond that, they can have impacts on peoples’ lives, the opinions they form and the decisions they make. We have a responsibility, and it’s one we don’t take lightly. We want to acknowledge when we fall short of the standard we’ve set for ourselves and the expectations people have for us.
So in this case, I want to apologize to our readers. I understand the level of frustration that comes from feeling left in the dark (no pun intended) and the role that I played in that in this instance.
I’ll be better.
But, of course, with that comes an ask, and it’s a simple one.
Be kind.
Understand that we here at Reminder Publishing are working hard to keep you informed to the best of our abilities and that’s a task that involves long hours, unconventional schedules, thousands upon thousands of words, and, frankly, none of us are getting rich. That’s not a complaint. We do this because we believe in it and, ultimately, we want to be a meaningful part of your community. But we’re human. We make mistakes. When we do make them, we understand their impact and do our best to rectify them.
We want hear your concerns; you don’t necessarily need to shout, though.
I’ve heard you on our coverage of the Minnechaug issue. Rest assured, we’re still on it and will continue to be as it unfolds. And this time, I’ll be sure it gets in the paper.