A rookie's 1st month on the job

By Mike Fak

[July 03, 2008]  I thought I knew this town and most of the people in it. I learned, this first month on the job, that was far from the case.

In just one month I have met so many great people I didn't know before that I wonder if the well will ever run dry. I do know this: The amount of interesting, informational and positive stories in our community is as plentiful as the stars on a clear night. All one has to do is look up.

My responsibility is to be concerned with local news, excluding local government and related issues, and I thought that was going to be a breeze. In fact, I made a list of interesting stories that I intended to do to fill in my hours of obligation as managing editor of the LDN. Wrong again.

From ribbon-cuts, to businesses expanding or changing hands, organizations helping others, talk of making things better and numerous other good, positive stories all have bounded into my e-mails, making my need to "dig" for stories almost unnecessary.

It's all there to be told. All these stories need is a messenger, and that is what I like to consider my job. I am taking your information and then telling it to everyone else who cares to know. I am the town crier, only I live and work in the age of electronic information.

I have had my frustrating moments. Sometimes I feel like I am walking into the middle of a movie theater when I cover a story. I have missed a great deal of important information and I am vague on the cast of characters. I wish I could yell out to stop this movie called local life and request it start over, but that can't happen. Life and issues and people continue to move on, and it is my job to catch up and not everyone else's to slow down and wait for me.

I have been fortunate that Jan Youngquist, editor-in-chief, has had my back. She has been able to fill in the holes in my reports and tie in past information that I just don't know to make some of my reports coherent to all of you. I am appreciative of her continued support as well as publisher Jim Youngquist's continual patience and encouragement that even an old man appreciates.

I am proud that we have our Close Up page off and running. In a way Close Up is a page out of an old-time, small-town weekly paper. It tells us about us and leaves the outside world for outside sources to report. I can see the page expanding to several times a week as more and more of you realize that what's important to you and your church and your organization is important to all of us at LDN. All we need to help is for you to tell us about what is going on, and we will do the rest.

I do intend to write some of those special stories that have waited too long for an audience. I will work harder to tell you about more of the amazing people and organizations in our community as my experience and time management get better.

I still have an incredible amount to learn, and I can only promise that I will try as hard as I can to catch up with the staff at LDN. I look forward to the day when I don't say "oops" anymore, but I believe that is in a distant moment in time right now.

I do know this. I am not a journalist, I am a storyteller trying hard to do both as well as I can. As I drive the streets and talk to all of you, I know that I must continue to work harder. You and your stories have been there for so long waiting for someone to tell that you almost have given up. Please don't.

The staff at LDN is now seven and growing. It allows us to say to you that we can promise to be your messengers: your town criers. You have waited long enough.

[By MIKE FAK]