There is a time when we all do some soul-searching. If you are in a certain job and considering change, you do soul-searching. If you are thinking about moving to another place, you need to think about it and sort out the pluses and minuses.
That’s what I have been doing for the last 24 hours. I want you all to know why I was soul-searching, how I went about it and how I reached my final decision.
First, I am not getting any younger. I just completed my first year on Medicare. When a lot is going on, it is a little harder to keep up. My health isn’t perfect but I am in relatively good shape for an older guy. Writing this local Fishers news blog, at times, wears me down now more than it did 5 years ago.
Second, I have been hoping that a regular, daily news service would come to Fishers. The last such news outlet was the Noblesville Daily Ledger, which has been out of business for a number of years. The Current in Fishers is a printed weekly and does the best it can with the amount of space provided for news. There are other monthly and bi-monthly magazine style news sources.
Many of the news sources in Fishers rely heavily on feature stories. There is nothing wrong with that, but people also need a source of what is happening currently in their local community. What is the city council doing? What is the mayor backing at his Board of Public Works and Safety? What decisions are up before the local school board?
When starting this blog in January of 2012, I sincerely thought I would spark someone, or some company, to take on the burden of reporting regular news on a daily, or nearly daily, basis. At the end of this year I will have completed 6 years of blogging locally and no one has stepped forward as a commercial daily news source.
There have been stretches of time when the Indianapolis Star has assigned a reporter to cover Fishers, and long stretches of time when no reporter was covering Fishers. Currently, the Star has one reporter on the Fishers beat.
The Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) has a North of 96th reporter charged with covering the northern suburbs and Fishers is often featured in that weekly print publication with a prominent online presence reporting news on a daily basis.
Bottom line, daily news from Fishers is rare. I have tried to cover the stories you may not find in the Star or the IBJ. I found that showing up is important and leads you to learn important information you would never know if not present at regular meetings.
Sadly, I am often the only reporter attending public government meetings in Fishers. So, news coverage of some of these sessions is entirely up to me. It’s a big burden for a volunteer blogger to take on, but I’ve taken that burden on for nearly 6 years.
Third, I have had some problems getting information from the City of Fishers. When there are controversies or bad news items, I do not expect a big announcement or news release from the city staff. But lately, I have been left out of some major good news the city should be touting everywhere. As a small local blog, I don’t expect any special treatment, but I’ve worked in journalism off and on since 1973. I know the minimum information that is expected from a city.
When Fuzic, a local Fishers tech company announced a big expansion, I was caught flat-footed. That’s the type of story people come to this blog to read. I started doing the soul-searching I already discussed. I wasn’t personally hurt, but how could I be expected to provide the news coverage my readers expect if I cannot get the good news stories the city should be shouting about? This wasn’t the first time something like this has happened to me.
I had been talking with my wife Jane about the work I was putting into the blog. I have a number of other projects I do in retirement. Was LarryInFishers.com worth the effort I have been putting into it?
That’s what sparked the blog post October 2nd, where I openly wondered whether this blog was worth continuing. It wasn’t just the Fuzic announcement (BTW, congratulations Fuzic, all of Fishers is excited for your success). It was a number of things happening over a number of months. Perhaps I was at an age when trying to handle all my retirement projects add up to more than I can handle.
So, I posted October 2nd just to let you know I was doing soul-searching on whether to continue LarryInFishers.com as a daily, or nearly daily, local news source. There are easier ways to blog.
Then, something happened that I never expected. I started receiving messages October 2nd and October 3rd. They came from everywhere, from people I know and from people I have never personally met. Some were sent privately, but many were sent publicly as Facebook & Twitter comments.
Here’s what I learned from all those messages – people not only read my blog, they care. I can measure the number of page views and the number of people accessing my blog. But analytics cannot measure how much, or how little, people care about what you write. I now know that there are many more people that care about my reporting than I could ever imagine.
That was going to be a major soul-searching factor in my decision whether to move forward with this blog or not. There is no way to ignore the many heart-felt messages I received.
The next step was focusing on the City of Fishers and how to fix some of the problems I had been experiencing getting information from the city. I know many of you blame Scott Fadness for that. I do not.
In a podcast interview with me earlier this year, Mayor Fadness, before I could ask him the first question, volunteered some very kind comments about how Fishers has no daily newspaper and my blog is the closest thing Fishers has to a daily newspaper. He didn’t need to say that, but he did and I appreciate it.
After my blog post October 2nd, I asked to meet with the Deputy Mayor about the issues I was having with getting information. Both Leah McGrath and Mayor Fadness came to that meeting. We had a very open and honest discussion about the problems I was having.
I can say with all honesty that my issues were related to the work load of certain employees within the city staff and there was no slight intended. I believe that is true.
When I explained what I need to continue working on this blog, Mayor Fadness and Deputy Mayor McGrath made commitments to me that should solve any problems. There is no one person at fault, there are just growing pains within the staff of a growing city. That is all that was involved here.
So, I am prepared to march on. I will continue writing this blog for two important reasons.
First, Mayor Fadness wants me to continue and believes I am providing an important service not being offered anywhere else.
Secondly, and most importantly, those of you regularly reading this blog have warmed my heart with your comments. How could I consider ending this blog after reading all you have written the last couple of days?
This soul searching has revealed to me I am doing something important. I never knew how important until the last couple of days.
Thank you all and God Bless you all. LarryInFishers will march on