EDITOR’S DESK: The Pioneer’s 2nd birthday
Well, yippee.
![]() Here we are with the last issue of 2005. The Westside Pioneer has now officially made it through two years of weekly publication. But it's not just longevity that's got me all giddy. It's the satisfaction that the plan we defined in the very first Pioneer (Jan. 5, 2004) remains intact. That plan was/is to put out a small weekly paper focused entirely on Westside news. Oh, we've been tempted to stray from that path. I wish I had a dollar for every phone call or press release I've received from a publicity person touting an event/activity/business elsewhere in the city, state or nation It would have been so easy to say yes - to broaden the scope of the paper and thus ensure that there would never be a shortage of copy. Nor are the arguments so simple to refute. "People on the Westside would probably like to know about [fill in the blank]," the publicity folks invariably say, after being advised that their story idea is outside our coverage area. "That could very well be true," is my basic response. "But we're only interested in stories about the Westside or the people that live here." Parochial? No doubt. But if we agree that the Westside is a unique place (and most people do agree on that), then how can we represent that uniqueness if we haven't honed in on it and tried to see what it's all about? Because it's only in defining what we have here that we know what we're defending against those who'd like to change it. And believe me, there are those who would. Well-meaning in some cases, like the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) engineers who want to put the equivalent of an I-25 through the Westside. And maybe pragmatic in other cases, like the Walgreens plan for the 3000 block of West Colorado. In any case, here the Pioneer is - with a goal no more complicated than telling our fellow Westsiders about things they might like to know, in as clear and simple a manner as possible. On to another year! - K.J. |