LIVE BLOGGING FROM MAIN STREET, NANTON!

(Most reporters I know live blog about hockey games, Question Period, rodeos. I do slow trickles of traffic.)

The Nanton News Experiment news desk on Main St., Nanton. 

11:40 a.m.

Set up- lemonade stand-type newspaper “office” to distribute my Nanton News Experiment. Can’t help but think how Pierre Berton was 22 when he edited the Vancouver Sun. I’m 24.

12: 05 p.m.

Best. Bun-wich. Ever. Main St. Café ladies asked if I wanted one of their famous bun-wiches , it was on the house, with ham, sausage, egg, onion, lettuce, tomato, and, “Stop,” I said. “Just stop.” You had me at bun-wich …

1:05 p.m.

Talked with Ron Stewart who appeared to me, a happy cross of “Doc” from Back to the Future and my uncle Wayne. Ron reminisces to me about his time in radio and how once in the 60s when working in Grande Prairie, CN ordered him not under an circumstances to plug or unplug anything unless teletyped from Toronto to do so.  Dutiful almost to a fault, he didn't touch the plug, waiting to hear from Toronto and the entire country west of Ontario missed Hockey Night in Canada that fateful evening.

Hearing such has spurred me on for at least the next hour of watching highway traffic, knowing that working locally totally beats being told what to do from someone 4,000 kms away. Can you even imagine??

1: 20 – 1:22 p.m.

Robbed blind!

Passersby have been for the most part very reluctant to stop for seeds while I sit here, but I leave for one measely minute to get coffee and I get ransacked! Oh humanity …

Just another day at the office. Except, the office is closed so I work outside.

2:00 p.m.

Rain.

I like you rain, you’re good for hair growth and retention, but lousy for newspapers and laptops.  The former Nanton News office behind and slightly beside me has a perdy lookin’ canopy. The irony would be too much.

2:40 p.m.

Hoping the scent of rain in the air will remind passersby it’s still Spring and increase my seed sales exponentially. I’m starting to feel a little like the Wedding Singer – giving away my hard work for meatballs and whatnot. I’ve made trades today for a coffee, a cigar and the opportunity to play with someone’s puppy. Newspaper reporters don’t get rich trading journalism for favours. Actually, reporters don’t get rich, period.

2:55 p.m.

Ominous gunsteel clouds incoming.  Canopy even more enticing. 

3:30 p.m.

Alison Myers! Alison Myers from 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 7 o'clock news on CBC Radio stopped by MY office ... you know, just to chat. OK, so what if my "office" is just an old card table and I have a bona fide distribution of 28, Alison Myers was interested in MY newspaper. CBC Radio is the greatest. Maybe one day people will wear T-shirts with the Nanton News Experiment logo on it ... 

THE SEEDY SIDE OF NEWS-MAKING

THE SEEDY SIDE OF NEWS-MAKING

It’s dirty work (starting a miniature newspaper) but someone’s got to do it.

Hi, and welcome to the “seed capital” edition of the Nanton News Experiment.

If you’re reading this I’ll deduce either you (a) care deeply about the existence of a local newspaper (b) care moderately about the existence of a local newspaper and figured: ‘Sure, what the heck. I could use some seeds,’ or (c) wanted me off your property and buying seeds was the fastest way.  Whatever the case may be, thank you. 

Your donation is fully funding the continuation of an experiment concerning the modern-day local newspaper. My hypothesis: The perfect newspaper should and can exist in Nanton, Alberta. 

The local newspaper has made a sorry name for itself recently.

What was once an intelligent and entertaining way to communicate in a small town – the local newspaper – now denotes a drab layout cluttered with advertising and vacuous stories (referred to less and less as ‘articles’ and ‘stories’ and more often simply as ‘content’). There is decreasingly little useful ‘content’ to be read.

The community newspaper has been diminishing for some time now like a garden harvested over and over again without ever adding anything new to the mix. Well, dear reader, the newspaper you are reading and the seeds you plant shortly are all part of an optimistic replenishment process. 

I could (and almost definitely will) go on at length about the importance of the local newspaper. But not right now. Right now I want to iterate what this paper, the Nanton News Experiment, intends to stand for and what you can expect in successive issues.

First, a good newspaper needs a mission statement. So let’s maybe start with that right now:

NANTON NEWS X MISSION STATEMENT:

Always have a clear Mission Statement. (Check.) 

Advertise sparingly and only with businesses/individuals meeting a certain standard of ethics. Never be at the whim of advertising revenue.

Readers should comprise the bulk of the newspaper’s articles, arguments and dialogue. 

Grow creatively. Engage an audience of readers and advertisers with inventiveness, humour, honesty and credibility. 

If we want the world to be transparent to the newspaper, the newspaper must be transparent to the world. Report income and status regularly and share introspective news about the newspaper. 

That’s all for now. I thank you for your donation and would very much like to hear from you so that I might include your comments, positive or otherwise, in the following issue.

SEED CAPITAL EDITION

For those of you interested in the goings-on of this here Nanton News Experiment, a brief update is warranted. 

Last weekend and the weekend before last weekend were really the New Experiment’s true grand debut. With the help of a number of Nanton townsfolk spurring me on with hearty encouragement and gratti cappuccinos I made my rounds to over 200 homes and businesses in the greater Nanton area. 

The objective remains to re-open the historic downtown Nanton News office, which closed April 6. The shtick, for those just tuning in, is a miniature newspaper written by myself and hand-delivered to Nantonians with hopes of generating enough support to grow the newspaper from the one-sixteenth-sized chapterette it currently is to a legitimate publication that no longer feels so embarrassed when showering with the other newspapers after gym class.

Door-to-door I went walking, ringing, explaining, begging, sweating, apologizing and selling garden seeds – a symbolic product of growth and faith and slow hope that after weeks of playing in the dirt a product will finally bear fruit. (For this ideal and for all the seeds I must thank the good owners of Home Hardware in Lloydminster. http://www.lifeatthestore.com/ )

The seeds were packaged in five and ten-counts wrapped in Sun Media’s free weekly paper 24 Hours – the symbolism there being that it is good for little else but wrapping. I even used twine to tie a bow and tucked the papers in like a mini present.

Alas, I would measure the success of the past two weekends somewhere in between stinging, bitter failure and acceptable first-time venture. I had hoped the revenue generated by the seeds –  “seed capital” if you will – could grow the next issue of the News Experiment. Maybe even make it colour. Factor in the cost of production and the seeds, and I barely broke even.

In a final blitzkrieg late Saturday night I turned my dial from ‘carefree young entrepreneur’ to ‘desperate Willy Lowman’ but it was no use. I have several dozen unsold packets of seeds and even more that were given as good will.

The next issue of the Nanton News Experiment will therefore likely be the same size.

This is not to say last weekend was not a lot of fun. In my next post I plan to share stories of the folks who invited me into their homes and share some of the concerns they raised for good or ill. After last weekend, I’ve never wanted to start my own Nanton newspaper so badly.