Even though I’ve been writing for the Dublin Citizen for more than 16 years, it always feels fresh because I still haven’t run out of ‘firsts.’
The most recent milestone is the first Stephenville City Council story I’ve covered, as you may have noticed on page A7.
The coverage is the result of the City of Stephenville approaching us about becoming the paper of record, meaning we act as the print publication for legal notices by providing a consistent and reliable venue for the public to find them.
Some might question why we are now the venue. I can only say there has been trouble with communication and consistency with the previous publication, according to city staff. (I was raised by polite parents and Disney’s “Bambi” to say nothing if I can’t say something nice.)
In taking on the new city as a paper of record, it is only right for us to cover city council meetings and city news as best as we can so those reading the notices can find context within our publication as well. We’ve noticed some news in Stephenville slipping through the cracks or not getting a lot of coverage. Hopefully, we can use this relationship to bridge that gap.
Since I’ve written for the Citizen, we have always aimed to cover area and county news as well as the city. We even historically had community pages where ‘In the Neighborhood’ columns were once printed. Since Wyndi came on, we have been able to cover more county news and have been handling items for many school districts within the county so this represents another step forward in that expansion.
Taking on a larger city as a paper of record raised a bunch of interesting questions so I thought I’d take a second to make some pledges that I expect our readers to hold us to.
To the people of Dublin, we are the Dublin Citizen meaning Dublin is our primary focus. We will not skip out on hometown coverage or miss Dublin events for the sake of seeking out content from elsewhere. The Citizen was started by a concerned group of Dubliners who felt the prior paper was no longer reflecting their values. I hold that history dear and always maintain that this is not my newspaper, it is the community’s. Dublin is in the title. Dublin is the primary focus.
To our Stephenville readers which have been growing steadily, we hope you find enough original content within our pages to keep you informed of the City and local area. We pledge to cover important items with as much care and balance as we do everything else. We are a small staff so we are having to weigh availability time in what we can cover. The more support we get though, the more we can handle in Dublin and in the area. This new association likely means more content for our readers.
We aim to have as much original content as possible and try to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
As always, I invite any of our readers to share requests, compliments or criticisms with us by emailing publisher@dublincitizen.com or calling (254) 445-2515.