For me, The Courier is an old friend.

As one of many former editors, I am writing about this venerable newspaper which was first published in 1865. In this article, I am writing mainly about the people and the community side of my Courier experience.

I remember well what the members of the paper’s staff called the “bush notes”.   These were the gleanings from the far flung reaches of Charlotte County—the down-to-earth and personal news: who was visiting local families or who was getting together for a card game.

And then, there were the tea parties. There was a definite hierarchy to these tea events: who “poured”, and who “replenished”—who brought the cookies and cake.

The full name of every person who attended a tea party was mentioned in the newspaper’s story. Salty old editors knew that many people bought the paper just to see their names, family members and friends’ names in print. Advertisers will always like having a lot of people viewing and appreciating their products.

Names were the bread and butter of traditional community journalism.

Then, there were the photographs. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. The great and colorful Al Corbett was our photographer back in the day, and nothing would light up the front page of the paper quite like one of Al’s photos of smiling kids or perhaps a deer fawn brought into the newsroom by one of the local forest rangers.

If Al was with us today, I’m sure he would agree that there’s more to journalism than talking to people on the telephone, or texting or emailing them.

Reporters must get out and talk to real people, face to face, cover the local councils, the hospital or school board or other public meetings and events. Simply put, journalists must find out what’s going on out there in the community and report on it.

While facts are critical for news and editorials, commentary can be strongly opinionated, but it must strive to be fair and without a proverbial axe to grind.

There is romance associated with the life of a reporter. Woodward and Bernstein, the reporters who broke the Watergate story back in the 1970’s, are still folk heroes today.

But even in community media, the life of a reporter is not all wine and roses. In my time, The Courier was doing investigative reporting on the construction of the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station, and a Minister in the provincial government stood up in the Legislative Assembly and accused us of being in possession of “stolen” documents. We were not, and the Minister later clarified his remark, saying it was made in relation to others, not The Courier. Still, those were tense times for all of us, including the Publisher, Dick Granville who stood with us.

We should not forget others in the Courier shop, people like the late Eileen Lee who kept us afloat financially; Ernie Peacock and Mary Bartlett who were essential in the layout room; Cartoonists, the late Dave Stevens and Ted Michener; the late Ann Breault who lead our investigative reporting efforts; Reporters Don Richardson, Marianne Janowicz, Reed Haley, and on the Calais side, Laura Proud.

In those years of the paper doing investigative journalism, we had no illusions about many readers being more interested in the “bush notes” than in our more serious journalism.

One of the great things about local journalism, is that you face the people you are writing about in the street, the day the newspaper is published.

I remember when a local minister of the cloth with Conservative leanings chewed me out after I wrote an editorial endorsing a federal Liberal election candidate. The minister and I later became friends, although it was after the newspaper gave prime coverage to his church’s efforts to rebuild after it was destroyed by fire. I also learned that endorsing a candidate does not necessarily cause that person to win an election. In fact, the opposite is often true!

In the age of social media and misinformation, the challenge can be more bruising for reporters and editors. Today, when words and threats are issued online, they are seemingly more remote from reality and of any consequences.

The life of one local reporter was threatened recently online when the facts as reported were accurate but differed from the incorrect online version of events.  A journalist must call it as he/she sees it, and while reporters cannot always expect to be popular, they should not have to fear for their own safety. Sometimes the truth hurts.

The great Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, Robert Caro, asked half a decade ago: “What is a great reporter? (It’s) someone who never stops trying to get as close to the truth as possible…there is no simple truth…but there are facts, hard facts…and the more facts you come up with, the closer you come to whatever truth there is.”

Nor can community media comment only on local issues. The world has a way of pounding its way to our doors.

For instance, many Ukrainians have come to live in Charlotte County because of the Putin-lead Russian invasion of Ukraine. They may be able return to their home country after this war, or they may settle here permanently. In any case, their lives have changed, and we have changed positively because of them coming here.

Similarly, the situation in the Middle East has blown up into an all-out war between Israel and Iran, into which U.S. President Donald Trump has now gotten involved in in a big way. The history and grievances are real and complicated. Too many people are starving or dying, and journalists here in Canada must be prepared to take a stand.

Too often, fact-based news is not what we are getting today in North America. Social media sources of news are more about manipulation of the truth and are often based on outright lies or gossip. Our democracy, our planet, desperately need fact-based news and honest opinion.

The late Marc Garneau, the first Canadian astronaut, spoke of looking back at planet Earth from space, and like other astronauts who have see our planet from far away, Garneau was changed by the experience. He said: “You had to see that this is our home, and we have to take care of it.”

The return of The Courier in print is very encouraging, and an example for our whole country. Congratulations to Vicki Hogarth, Patrick Watt, and their famous puppy Maud, as well as current Editor, Nathalie Sturgeon, Aidan Raynor, Madison Gowan, Brian Owens, Florence Mitchell, Barb Rayner, Brian Dickson and many, many others at CHCO/Courier.

Julian Walker was born in St. Stephen and grew up in Bayside. He was editor of The Saint Croix Courier 1979-82. While he was editor, the paper’s small, hard-digging staff received honours for the best weekly in Atlantic Canada, and recognition for churning out stories among the top 10 pieces of investigative journalism in Canada for 1981. Julian went on to work for five daily newspapers in New Brunswick and outside the province.