Summer slipped away on Sunday morning at exactly 8:43 am amid a light rain and cool temperatures, as the gray skies shifted to the start of the autumnal equinox.
This change in the season always means the height of the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, and it often means suddenly having to wear socks again! For me, the start of fall seemed a good time to reflect on the first nine months of my role as publisher of The Martha’s Vineyard Times. That makes three seasons — winter, spring and summer — that the news organization has been under the new ownership of Stephen Bernier, who asked me to step up as publisher.
I vowed to keep you, our readers, updated on our progress since that week in January when I first entered the newsroom amid powerful winds and a fluke, 100-year flood at Five Corners in Vineyard Haven. On that first day, I will never forget seeing the “MV Times” sign atop the newsroom’s entry literally twisting in the wind. The newsroom was soon to be under about six inches of water. Two ominous metaphors. And then within a few days, our servers would crash and raise the specter of losing our entire archive.
Well, as it turned out, our neighbors on the waterfront helped us right the sign. The flooding subsided, and eventually we scrubbed and bleached the floors, and set out to raise them in key places so we could stay high and dry. We also replaced the server and, thanks to a tech savior, we managed to salvage just about all of the archive. Since then, we have tried to clean the place up with new carpet and fresh paint at the entry. We know the nearly 100-year-old building is still very rough around the edges, and we are still struggling financially to make the paper sustainable.
Despite all the challenges, I am incredibly honored to lead a team of Islanders who work day in and day out to serve our community with trusted, local news. We set out some goals for ourselves back in January that had to do with strengthening the paper while staying true to the year-round residents who make up most of our loyal readership. We also set out to serve newer residents who are part of an increasingly diverse Island. We are particularly proud of a series of articles on Brazilian immigration, and how it has transformed our Island, with Brazilians now making up 20 percent of the year-round population. We have developed an online translation service for every article into Portuguese, the language spoken in Brazil, an effort at outreach which was highlighted in The Boston Globe. We also offer translation in Spanish and Serbian and other languages spoken in the vibrant community of immigrants who are calling the Island home. We have added a column called “Voices,” by Sharisse Scott-Rawlins, who is writing on diverse aspects of culture, art, and business reverberating across the Island.
We are also continuing some of the best traditions of the paper, including a focus on our daily newsletter, The Minute. The Minute has 20,000 subscribers, the leading newsletter on the Island, and it has an extraordinary open rate by those of you who receive it in your email. We reached out to hear from you about how we might improve the user experience on The Minute, and we received some 1,200 responses in the 24 hours after we posted the survey, a stunning case in point of just how engaged you are as our audience. Thank you for that! And we hope you see the improvements you suggested.
We are staying with our publication of the Vineyard Visitor, which serves the summer crowd with a set of features and maps, and which this summer explored the rich legacy of the Black community in Oak Bluffs. The fall edition of the Vineyard Visitor, which is due out on Oct. 10, is focused on the traditions and art of the Wampanoag tribe in Aquinnah. We were proud to sponsor the 10th annual Islanders Write gathering, which celebrates Martha’s Vineyard’s extraordinary array of local writers, and holds workshops and panels for aspiring scribes.
We are, as always, covering town meetings and high school sports, and staying on top of news you need, from the schools to the Steamship Authority, and the saga of Vineyard Wind. And we are doing all of these efforts to serve you while recognizing that there is a full-blown crisis for local newspapers in America, and in many corners of the world. Indeed, an estimated 2.5 local newspapers close every week in America due to the strains of shifting business models and changing habits of how people consume news over the past 20 years. We believe firmly that the crisis in local news has much to do with the crisis in our democracy. Local newspapers are what bind communities together around shared sets of facts, so we can make good decisions together. So please know that when you subscribe to and read this and other local newspapers, you are supporting the very foundation of democracy.
And as we turn the corner into the fall, I also want to share with you some changes you will see on the masthead. Our team has stepped up and proven itself, and so we are proud to announce some important promotions as members of the team take on new roles. The reliable and insightful Sam Houghton is stepping up into the role of Managing Editor for News. Patrick Phillips, who is the founder of our Arts & Ideas magazine, is now serving as Managing Editor for Features and Special Publications. Our star features writer, Allison Roberts, is trying her hand as our Features Editor. The legendary Abby Remer will be added to the masthead as our lead Features Writer. Two great reporters, Eunki Seonwoo and Daniel Greenman, have both taken on additional roles, with Eunki helping us coordinate distribution and Daniel editing The Minute. Our business team has some shining stars who are also on the rise, including Valerie Desire, who has been promoted to the manager of Classifieds and Subscriptions, and Ashley Wheeler, who has been promoted to Manager of Ad Sales. We have also added some new talent in our news trainees, Nicholas Vukota and Natalie Wambui.
The work we do is vital to the community we live in, and all of it is about serving you, our readers, and this amazing Island we share. We have much work to do to succeed in our goals, but I just wanted to pause to recognize the whole team. And to thank you all for reading this newspaper. We cannot do what we do without your engagement as readers and your support as subscribers. A heartfelt thank-you!
