My daughter Susan, creative marketing director of The Villager, was conversing with me over the weekend about all of the valuable news and coverage that The Villager provides to readers each and every week. She related, “Who would cover all of these meetings and cities if The Villager did not exist?”
There is a thin line and growing thinner every year for newspapers to be the guardians of freedom of religion, speech, and the press if we cease to exist. The First Amendment spells out the right of people to assemble peacefully and to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Further, while protecting the people they protected basic rights:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Our founding fathers made this the First Amendment to The Constitution because it was so important to the new republic.
We know that the Second Amendment is very simple and forward.
“A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
In today’s world we hear more about these two Amendments than any of the other 27 epistles that govern our nation.
We find that “Freedom of the Press” still strongly exists and better newspapers still put ink on newsprint each week along with digital web page distribution. Newspapers record news as it happens in print delivered in different formats, digital or newsprint.
It doesn’t disappear from the computer screen, but lasts for eternity as a printed word, one of the most powerful inventions of world civilization; most powerful in our Guttenberg Bible.
The Villager is approaching our 40th Anniversary this November. That’s a lot of ink and weekly headlines. We’ve made many friends and have helped many businesses, nonprofits and individuals, but the past four decades have been a wonderful experience of local journalism.
We’re very proud of the fact that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Littleton has a copy of The Villager in the Mormon temple cornerstone time capsule as a defender of freedom of religion. The City of Cherry Hills will include our 75th anniversary edition in their time capsule as they celebrate the city’s anniversary Saturday August 28 from 3 pm to 7 p.m. at Meade Park.
We still have original subscribers who have been with us over the four decades. Edie Marks is our longest running advertiser with ads in the newspaper every week for 40 years. Now with Kentwood, she started her career with John Dawson decades ago.
Major changes are occurring in the local newspaper world with the Colorado Media News changing hands. The 24 newspapers were purchased by The Colorado Sun, a Denver digital daily newspaper organization founded by Denver Post former employees.
Phil Anschutz has started The Denver Gazette, a digital spinoff from his Colorado Springs Gazette/Telegraph newspaper operation.
The Denver Post prints the Colorado Springs Gazette and they also print The Villager at their Longmont/Loveland printing plant in Berthoud.
We have a policy about coverage of public meetings, if you don’t want your dialogue printed, don’t say it. The major point about freedom of speech and the press is that you are responsible for what you say or write.
Being a subscription-based newspaper, we have to sell tickets to the performance. At $1 a week, delivered to your mailbox, this newspaper is one of the last bargains in this increasing inflated economy. We’ve already been notified that newsprint prices are increasing and print prices rising as a result. We’ll keep the price the same as long as we can and eat the newsprint increase, but we would appreciate new and renewal subscriptions. Call 720-270-2018 for subscribe.
Noted Colorado poet laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferrill, who published an early day newspaper, The Rocky Mountain Herald, with his wife Helen, described subscriptions as sending “hay to feed his horses.” I would have breakfast with him occasionally at the historic Oxford Hotel that he frequented decades ago. Prior to the hotel remodel by iconic Dana Crawford I stayed in that hotel on visits to Denver from Craig for Colorado Press Association meetings.
We’re aware of many news sources, but as a legal newspaper under Colorado laws, we are required by law to publish 52 times a year, have an office in the city, and have paid subscriptions. We comply with these state publication statues. A city needs to publish notices of election and legal notices in the local legal newspaper, not in another city. That’s not transparency, and the reason that local newspapers exist is to keep the public informed at the pleasure or displeasure of elected officials.
A thank you to a loyal Cherry Hills reader who sent me an email last week saying, “Bob, I loved your strong defense of the 1st Amendment in today’s paper. We need so much more of that in this world.” Bravo, Tom
That about says it all.