By: Laura Keil
Someone came up to me last week and asked me if it’s true that I’m selling the Goat. Yes! I said. I’m so glad people have taken notice. I’m selling the Goat at the IGA, the Petro Can, the AG foods”¦ there are about 25 places throughout the Valley. But, no, I am not selling the business and have no intention to.
I thanked this woman for bringing this gossip to me directly. If it sounds big and disastrous, the information is likely to travel quickly – and devastatingly. What is it about our human nature that we want to be the purveyors of doom and gloom? Not always doom, of course. Another rumour is that I’m pregnant. This is also true. I am so pregnant with hope right now. I’m pregnant with hope about selling the newspaper at local businesses.
Here’s another persistent one: Andru is involved in the Goat. Trust me, we would not be married if we worked at the same paper. I love my husband. That is why we don’t work together. He ran a newspaper for five years and had his direction. I have mine. Besides that, I have an awesome team I work with already.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that journalism is a science, but it has methodologies and formulas just like your best chemistry class. How do we KNOW if something is really true? If it’s true, how do we know that we’ve understood it correctly? How do we know if, when we repeat it, that the other person will understand our true meaning? There are many checks and balances in our work – in the interviewing process, the writing and the editing. The editing part is less creativity, and more – does this story really call for 300mL of quotations? What about the five ounces of background info? What if, in the end, this is the wrong thing to be talking about? Talking about this contorts our focus from what really matters?
It’s always easier to believe something that fits our current world view. Something that seems plausible. Something that serves our various needs and feelings.
I hope people will notice the difference in the quality – the terroir, let’s say – of the information that appears in the paper versus what they hear on the street or on Facebook.
