By Michael Letendre

The newspaper industry has completely changed over the past couple decades and, frankly, not for the better.

Daily, weekly, and even monthly entities have been purchased – in droves – by nameless, faceless corporations that have turned a once thriving industry into a shadow of itself.

And towns and mid-sized cities, like Bristol, should not be losing grasp of their own newspapers, because local news needs to remain local.

When the Bristol Observer shut its doors for good this past April, that closure left a void in local news coverage throughout the city.

But it is tough to stay in business with advertising revenue drying up, turnover in staff, and a printing press that was ready for the glue factory several years ago.

You cannot rely on shoe-string budgets for these outlets to remain in business and expect quality content.

Again, giant corporations are buying every newspaper it can get its greedy hands on, gutting the main office staff, laying off, furloughing, or even firing talented individuals and making the publication even less local than ever.

These out of state owners think that one size fits all, and if you get a morsal of local coverage, that is good enough for them.

The state print media finds itself in a horrible position in 2020, and you can see for yourself, just  down the street from the Boulevard, what I am talking about.

And honestly, local papers littered with stories about New Britain, Berlin and other out-of-town happenings do not have any business in our town.

Bristol craves an alternative media source to post information about what is going on in our schools, events at City Hall, results of a summer baseball game in town, what’s cooking at our favorite restaurants and the like.

We need to have something that’s Bristol run, Bristol owned and that is all about – you guessed it – Bristol.

That is the main reason why The Bristol Edition concept was created.

You can see exactly what the TBE is all about on our website: ‘An ethical citizen-driven community journalism project covering Bristol, Connecticut. One model for communities where news coverage needs attention.’

And we need your help in spreading the word about TBE.

Now, we are not going to act like PBS and operate pledge drives during your favorite episode of Doctor Who or throughout a UCONN women’s basketball game (for your pledge of $97.86 a month for the next 10 years, we will send you a Doctor Who mug that may or may not chip your tooth…).

That is not that kind of help I am asking for today.

If you are reading our stories and enjoying all the Bristol content, tell a friend about us and have them subscribe to the TBE website.

And if you do not have any friends, tell your husband, wife or significant other to sign up instead.

TBE is growing and we want to grow with you, your family, and even your dog if you want.

You can see the potential in having alternative media sources in town, and we want to be your local source of information that you can turn to as these daily papers grow less local by the day.

The fact of the matter is you want BRISTOL news. We are here to provide that for you.

I wouldn’t have joined this excellent team of talented individuals if that wasn’t the case.

And the people putting together this publication today are individuals you know from your own community.

I am talking about Dave Fortier, Jack Kramptiz and Rit Carter, and all three of these ‘Bristolites’ believe in this product.

Fortier is not a stranger to the media industry within the city limits, as he created a newspaper in the late 1990’s called Bristol Today, a versatile and informative weekly which helped fill an important information vacuum in Bristol.

And that venture was designed, built, written, and maintained by your neighbors in Bristol, too.

Twenty years later, Fortier is back at it again with The Bristol Edition and the content you see here is as local as ever – just like it was then.

This is an important project to embrace and the community will be all the better for it.

TBE is growing by the day and over the upcoming months, we will be adding talented individuals to our roster of writers.

And you will see special features, interesting stories, and all things about Bristol as 2021 unfolds.

So, put down that broken Doctor Who mug, subscribe to our website, and spread the word about TBE.

Thank you for reading.