Collected moments in newspapers are history

History is happening all around us, at every moment, but we often miss it because we’re not right at the place where it’s happening, or we just don’t realize that this thing we’re seeing is important.

That’s why newspapers matter: Someone is watching, taking note, and explaining why that thing that just happened might have an impact on our lives that will last for years or for decades.

The Lakeville Journal has been capturing those moments for Northwest Corner residents for 125 years. We have chronicled the highs and the lows that have brought joy or sadness to our community, experiences we’ve shared together; and we have chronicled those small moments, the meeting here, the conversation there, a wedding, a birth, the argument that plays out for weeks on our editorial pages.

It all adds up and helps us understand who we are, where we live and why we love to be here.

— Cynthia Hochswender, Compass and special sections editor

Service to community, now and future

Each week the work of reporters and photographers of The Lakeville Journal begins to flow into the newsroom, where at a deadline-driven pace editors find places for every story and the best images that tell another chapter in the weekly life of the Northwest Corner community. More and more those stories and photographs are also presented to Journal readers not only once a week in a printed newspaper, but also throughout the week as timely news delivered on online platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Lakevillejournal.com.

As editor of The Journal, my goal is to leverage the paper’s legendary reputation to continue to provide a public service to the Northwest Corner community, ensuring that readers are well informed by a weekly delivery of news that tells it like it is. Community is everything. Knowing about our world — and celebrating it — is paramount as we live and work — and play — together.

As the pandemic fades, with all its impact on our daily lives, The Journal is mapping a new chapter that will expand coverage on many fronts. It always will keep a sharp focus on local government and will extend its coverage of regional initiatives. We also plan to examine in depth specific topics that are vital to community well being. Housing, education and the environment and our local economy will get primary attention in our news pages. We also plan to widen our reach on sports, arts and culture and lifestyle coverage.

A recent Page One story about Sydney Segalla, a Housatonic Valley Regional High School senior athlete who set multiple records in various sports, is an example of ways The Lakeville Journal focuses on the achievements of the best in our community, and especially its youth. Our coverage of the aftermath of too much tree-cutting at Housatonic Meadows State Park explained how both sides — environmentalists and state bureaucrats — eventually found common ground to remediate damage and hopefully prevent such mistakes in the future.

We tell stories about people in our own community who achieve success through talent and hard work, like the story of a Lakeville musical lyricist whose work was celebrated in a pre-Broadway premiere in Hartford. In July, we started a series of stories on the issues facing employees and employers in what is now a difficult post-pandemic labor market, which has undergone a change from lacking customers to now lacking employees.

My decades-long career in the newsroom at The Wall Street Journal has taught me to listen to all sides of a story, report on all sides and deliver the news with a high regard for the readers’ ability to come to their own conclusions. Lakeville Journal readers want to know what’s going on in their community. Our aim is to provide that intelligence, and to also inform them about things that are not so obvious, but are nevertheless “going on in their community.”

Our door is always open and we are ready to listen. Of course, that is nothing new.

— John Coston, editor

Gratitude all around

The weekend of Aug. 13 and 14 was one we at The Lakeville Journal will never forget. It included the opening reception of an exhibit at The Salisbury Association’s Academy Building on 125 years of Lakeville Journal history (open until Oct. 1), and a festive Anniversary Day Street Fair in Salisbury in celebration of our years of publication. Thank you to the people who came out to help us celebrate at both events, and thank you to our staff, board and so many volunteers who helped make these days come together.

The Lakeville Journal is extremely grateful to be here to share its anniversary with all in our communities. We are here because of you.

— Janet Manko, publisher and editor in chief