Ever tried to made 3300 people happy?

Can't be done.

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Our paper has about 3300 regular readers every week. Just as I believe it is not possible to produce a perfect newspaper (no typos, no wrong names, no fuzzy photos, no grammar or printing errors) - I also believe it is impossible to produce a newspaper that all readers enjoy.

Very rarely do I ever get any feedback. (Hmmm. Like in this blog.) In over four years, I can count the good comments I have received on two hands, and the bad comments on two hands and a foot.

Usually, there are no comments, and I move on to another week not knowing if anyone even read what I wrote the week before.

One topic I have had heard people say they like is the topic of the garden or the critters in the yard.

I've heard compliments to this topic three times, in fact.

So, especially in spring, I write about flowers and ducks and weather and temperatures.

Alas. I thought I was doing well.

But no.

This week, a reader left a message for me at one of our distribution locations.

To paraphrase:

"I don't care about no stupid flowers. When are you going to cover what those people are doing with our tax dollars?"

A friend recently told me I don't take constructive criticism well. I am also aware that my attitude lately is more like a professional bar maid's than a professional reporter's.

However . . .

Why don't you get your big, fat, complaining butt over to town to find out yourself what's being done with your tax dollars?

After all, they are YOUR tax dollars, and the idiots running this joint were elected by YOUR vote.

I mean, good grief! I've covered every town council meeting but two over four years, have hit at least 85% of the county commission meetings, and I have never seen such an interested citizen present.

Why is it people feel they can yell at me, but not the ones they themselves elected?

Elected officials are public servants. Are newspaper reporters public servants as well? If so, then I've had it with this ungrateful bunch.

Where were these folks when county employees were getting laid off? When we sued the town for infringement of the sunshine laws?

When a state officer, (when asked why he didn't stop questioning a 16-year-old charged with double homicide when the kid asked for his lawyer) said, "I didn't think it was relevant."

Where were you people when I put that in the newspaper? Do you elect someone else? Do you call in to call for action? Do you do anything more than stand around the counter at the corner store and whine?

Nope. Nothing.

I can be the first to report the internal investigation of the state police in a murder case, and while I'm getting screamed at by the Sergeant,and
called into the judge's chambers, and
called into a meeting with my boss and the prosecutor, and
get pulled over (surprise) by the state police, and
look at photos of bloody murder scenes . . .

Oh yes dearies, I can delve deep into a story and take on the county's toughest nuts.

And still get nothing from the readers.

No compliments, no comments, no call to action.

I can run myself to rags physically to cover all of Christmas, or the annual Wood festival, and. . .

Nothing.


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Who am I kidding anyway?

I've been doing this for four years, and I've learned already - it's easier to get along than to get it right.

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For four years prior to my appearance at the Chronicle, there was no reporter.

Prior to that void of appointment, there was Susan Starr.

Her nickname was "Susie Star Wars," so I am told, and she will go down in Calhoun history as the most shit-stirringest reporter that ever served the community.

When I started as reporter for this community, Susie Star Wars was as present as any other citizen, even though she had moved away years before.

Around any staff member (or relation to the owners thereof), her name is whispered in undertones - as if saying her name outloud might actually make her appear.

Say her name outside the offices, and immediately people will roll their eyes smiling, or chuckle, or say "oh, geez, she was a whip."

I went to the archives to research.

Yes, SSW was a whip. She held back nothing. Rumors, gossip and news all rolled into one, SSW printed whatever came to sight and mind. She had no formal training in journalism or writing; she had very little guidance. And, she worked for a publisher (my publisher's dead husband) who put his hard-core editorial against gays in the military on the front page of the paper.

I must say it was some entertaining (and sometimes frightening) reading.

Some say the reason SSW left was because she was tired of being harassed. Her personal phones were tapped, and she was pulled over by the cops on a regular basis, her marriage was on the rocks, and she was facing the third lawsuit of her tenure, this one for defamation of character.

Can you imagine wanting to leave all that?

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The lady who does't want to read about "stupid flowers" wishes I was more like Susie Star Wars.

Now there's a big surprise.

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