Dear Reporter readers,
Like many of you, we at the Reporter are forced by this pandemic to work from home. Unlike some of you, we are at least still working. The shutdowns required to restrain the spread of the coronavirus are having a brutal impact on the local economy.
We’re feeling your pain, too. The Reporter is a small, local business. We advertise other businesses. Our staff lives in the communities we cover, shopping locally and keeping money in the local economy. So we are all in this together. If you have a business to advertise, we’d appreciate your considering us — any time, but especially in this time.
Besides being a small business, the Reporter is also a public service. Our staff has been working relentlessly to report the local impacts of this international disaster. We will keep doing it.
As the pandemic unfolds and the scientific and political battles continue, there are a lot of unanswerable questions, a lot of things we just don’t know. One thing we do know at the Reporter is how to put out a newspaper. So we did. Look for it coming to you starting this weekend, or read our digital edition here.
We invented a new way of publishing the paper on the fly as we worked remotely. Reporters gathered facts about the terrible news while knowing the story would affect them and their loved ones personally. Columnists and photographers abandoned regular assignments and took on the story of this crisis. We think you’ll find the issue to be a valuable snapshot of a historic moment, even though it’s a kind of history none of us want to be part of.
But that’s not all we’re reporting. We know you rely on us for all sorts of local news, and we have that too. From Atlanta’s new Tree Protection ordinance, to breweries in Dunwoody Village, to a plan for trails among top end Perimeter cities, we have that news for you.
Meanwhile, we continue to report your daily local news online at ReporterNewspapers.net.
When it hits me that we are reporting the worst news I have ever had to tell anyone, I also remember the remarkable, positive things that some of you will do with that knowledge. As just one example we are covering, there’s the effort in Dunwoody to raise money for struggling artists by selling yard signs bearing the iconic mural that says “Everything Will Be OK.”
There are more stories like that to come. I’d love to hear yours. Feel free to email me at editor@ReporterNewspapers.net.
And thank you for reading the Reporter. The pandemic is a story about all of us. We’ll keep telling it, and we’ll all write its ending together.
John Ruch
Managing Editor
Reporter Newspapers