The Endorsement

Last week The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times announced that they would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s race. The moves grabbed headlines and prompted outcry from readers of those newspapers, many of whom threatened to immediately cancel their subscriptions. The Post’s publisher said the decision reflected “our readers ability to make up their own minds.” In a similar vein, the owner of The Times suggested that the paper list candidate pros and cons “and let the readers decide,” according to a report in the Associated Press.

Following these announcements some of our own readers have inquired whether The Journal would be endorsing any candidate. In fact, that question also has been brought up occasionally in past weeks as campaigns got underway. In our recent history, before becoming a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit in 2021, we also engaged in political endorsement — but no longer, because of our new status. We were saved from the struggle to survive in a declining newspaper climate by our readers and advertisers and by a community that wanted to preserve its independent community newspaper. In recent years, many U.S. newspapers have been dropping endorsements. Some have cited readership declines, and not wanting to give readers a reason to cancel subscriptions. Others realized that readers don’t really want to be told what to think. The Editorial also had become one of the least read features in the paper.

The Lakeville Journal continues the tradition of The Editorial, aiming to be relevant and interesting and worth your time. Your letters and our columns offer an invaluable source of viewpoints. We appreciate your support in our mission to be the best local newspaper possible, providing you with news that matters.

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LJMN Media, publisher of The Lakeville Journal (first published in 1897) and The Millerton News (first published in 1932), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news organization.

We seek to help readers make more informed decisions through comprehensive news coverage of communities in Northwest Connecticut and Eastern Dutchess County in New York.

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Selectmen suspend town clerk’s salary during absence

North Canaan Town Hall

Photo by Riley Klein

NORTH CANAAN — “If you’re not coming to work, why would you get paid?”

Selectman Craig Whiting asked his fellow selectmen this pointed question during a special meeting of the Board on March 12 discussing Town Clerk Jean Jacquier, who has been absent from work for more than a month. She was not present at the meeting.

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Dan Howe’s time machine
Dan Howe at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.
Natalia Zukerman

“Every picture begins with just a collection of good shapes,” said painter and illustrator Dan Howe, standing amid his paintings and drawings at the Kearcher-Monsell Gallery at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The exhibit, which opened on Friday, March 7, and runs through April 10, spans decades and influences, from magazine illustration to portrait commissions to imagined worlds pulled from childhood nostalgia. The works — some luminous and grand, others intimate and quiet — show an artist whose technique is steeped in history, but whose sensibility is wholly his own.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, and trained at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Howe’s artistic foundation was built on rigorous, old-school principles. “Back then, art school was like boot camp,” he recalled. “You took figure drawing five days a week, three hours a day. They tried to weed people out, but it was good training.” That discipline led him to study under Tom Lovell, a renowned illustrator from the golden age of magazine art. “Lovell always said, ‘No amount of detail can save a picture that’s commonplace in design.’”

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