The Re-Birth of the Edenton Gazette

How Edenton’s 19th-century publication came back. (Also the Who, What, When, Where, Why…)

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, actually not.  It was 10:48 on the morning of January 12, 2021, when Edenton’s Kim Ringeisen pressed SEND and emailed a manifesto to a few close friends in town. It opened with this:

Democracy benefits from an informed and engaged public. The effort is based on fact, science, and be data-driven. … There needs to be an amplification of common sense and fact-based information for the citizens of the county.

Kim went on to elaborate on what he specifically thought the value of a new hometown publication would be and how it could become a community-supported endeavor, relying on citizen journalists in all townships in Chowan County.

First, a Name

A new venture with an old name. Those of us who were on the receiving end of Kim’s email thought about what to call this journal. Kim had initially suggested a historic option, “The Chowan County Register,” and as part of our first collaborative and deliberation, we came up with a few other ideas.

Then, fairly quickly, we hit on the idea of brushing off an old nameplate – Edenton Gazette.  Keeping in mind that this was the first time that the group met and discussed the call to action to chart a path for this new endeavor in service to those who call Chowan County and Edenton Home.  

Then, Content

With that out of the way, we then had to think about content and more importantly, how much time we could commit to the initiative.  One thing we were certain of was that we wanted to avoid: opinion. Instead, as Kim emphasized, the content should be “data-driven.”   

Yes, it is easy to provide opinions and sometimes you would like to hear someone’s opinion, like for example if you want input on a new renovation project.   However, when it comes to costs, zoning, or building standards, that should be data-driven. 

Organizations thrive on goals that are time-based, measurable, and achievable, next for us was setting a publishing date

A step that cannot be underestimated!  Once the date is set, then the hard work to get everything figured out and launched!   Everything from articles, information, social media presence, and more.   How best to align and distribute work, ensuring we are data-driven and community-focused, were all now tasks for the team to work on.  

 New initiatives have a lot of moving parts, there are a lot of areas that you discover that need priority and ownership to ensure they are taken care of. 

We will embark on this important journey with the understanding that there will always be new things to learn and apply to our journalism.  There will be items we get wrong that we will need to correct, we will work to keep these minimized.

As with everything we put our energy into, we continue to learn and improve our output and will work to maintain an open and inclusive discussion on the issues, as well as increasing visibility to them.

A Request

We invite you to join us in this journey, to become our readers and contributors to articles that help to enrich understanding of the issues, and of what you do in the community to create a more inclusive and unified voice. 

As part of our citizen journalism efforts, we will also focus on local civic journalism.  Traditional journalism has its well-deserved place in society and we are happy to hear of the recent news coverage expansion in our region.   

What we are building can best be explained with the following passage:

Listening to the public to help shape the news agenda, giving ordinary people a voice, covering stories in a way that facilitates public understanding and stimulates citizen deliberation of the problems behind the stories, presenting news to make it more accessible and easier for people to engage in the issues, engaging the community in problem-solving, and maximizing the impact of the coverage in the community. 

Comparative and critical analysis: The roles of civic and traditional journalism – Nip, J. M. (2008). The last days of civic journalism. Journalism Practice, 2(2), 179-196. doi:10.1080/17512780801999352 

We look forward to hearing from you, please connect with us on Facebook and Patreon.