By David Fortier

Come Sunday morning, the week will have wound up with me watching a couple of NCAA basketball games, two women’s games (UConn) and two men’s (Duke and Villanova). If that means anything, it is this: I rarely find myself in front of the television during the week or weekend, so a week when I watch this many games is a novelty–not a loss necessarily but one where I kind of dropped out of the regular routine.

And of course that means a detour from the norm: around here these days, the norm is regular accounts of what is happening in Ukraine, wondering about COVID and its next variant, which appears to be upon us since I have heard of two cases in the past three days, accounts of state races across the country where candidates who embrace the Big Lie are positioning themselves for victories, and updates about the grandkids.

It is, if anything, a split existence. And then of course there are regular visits to our website for updates about new memberships and donations. It is very exciting being involved in The Bristol Edition. Our local community news initiative is carving out a new model for what has become a news desert–local news. As a nonprofit, TBE joins similar efforts across the country, and ones where transparency is a necessity.

What do I mean by transparency? In our case, TBE is clear about our funding–our readers–and what they should expect for their financial support–knowledge of where their support is going. Any funds we raise will go to paying reporters to expand our coverage of local government. Purposely, I do not say local politics because politics is more about personalities than government which is a process. We need to be re-introduced to the process.

By local government coverage, TBE intends to report about what is happening at the Board of Education, with decisions and who makes them–the mayor and the city council, our state reps and senator, in all those committees where decisions that affect all of us are made. This is News 101 and it has been badly neglected. With your help, TBE can make this news part of our regular fare.

And then, as we expand, more of you, we hope, will support our efforts, we will be able to cover more and more of the community, from business to nonprofits to movers-and-shakers to the up-and-comers among us. In other words, TBE will cover the community the way it should and can be covered–and covered with quality reporters, homegrown and professional.

Our fundraising efforts are centered around our online PayPal connection, which we are learning is for some people a challenge. We are working to allow credit and debit card memberships and donations, and we hope they will be available within the week.

In the meantime, you may send checks for the different membership levels–supporter, at $6 a month; patron, at $12 a month; and benefactor, at $20 a month–to: The Bristol Edition, c/o Jack Krampitz, 100 Bird Rd., Bristol, CT 06010. Single donations are also welcomed.

As we proceed with our fund drive, we will be announcing different gifts for the different levels of giving. Among these will be TBE mugs and t-shirts, lunches with staff, invitations to our annual forum, podcasts and special reports, and outings at Bristol Blues baseball games. Stay tuned for more information.

Again, as a community news organization, we have for our first priority serving the community, fulfilling on our promises to engage in quality reporting, which is a more than a worthwhile endeavor, if not an absolutely necessary for our democracy.

Several readers have taken issue with our sports coverage, because there is so much of it. They would like to see more comprehensive coverage of government and the city as a whole. Sports has been at the fore because we have a very dedicated sports reporter in Mike Letendre. To keep him on, we need to be able to compensate him fairly.

At the same time, our goal is to foster news reporters who cover local government with the same dedication, if not fervor. Paying them for their efforts ensures that they can focus on their work.

It’s a matter of matching good intentions with practical support. It’s a matter of matching the good will of a caring and supportive community, which appreciates these efforts, values them and backs them financially because these efforts are necessary, with a business, TBE, that has for its goal quality news reporting.

Have a good week!

“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.