Editorials
Commentary: You have forgotten
- Details
- By Gary P. Custer
- Tuesday, November 29, -0001
- Hits: 411
It is a very simple concept. We have been doing it for years.
But after almost 23 years, many of you have forgotten it.
Most of our current readers get the magazine on their doorstep once a month, read it and discard it — without a thought about how unique it is.
We use the term "unique" in its dictionary meaning — one of kind.
We doubt that there is anything approaching East Village Magazine anywhere.
A few facts for those of you that may have forgotten.
The people that publish East Village Magazine are all volunteers.
The editor edits, the writers write, advertising sales people sell ads, the photographer photographs and distributors distribute for no money. In fact, they often dip into their own pockets to pay expenses.
Publishing the magazine is a labor of love, not a commercial operation. We continue to publish because we believe in what we are doing.
All of our equipment is contributed.
We have an unlikely mixture of used computer equipment representing every computer age except the past three or four. We make due with whatever you provide us, whatever the age or condition, and are happy to have it.
We get no money from government and private foundations.
The reason is simple. What a big donor gives, a big donor can take away.
It costs about $2,200 an issue of which about 75 percent comes from contributors and about 25 percent comes from ads. Currently the number of contributors is less than 100 out of 16,000 or so readers.
We have been doing what we do for almost 23 years — probably a record in itself.
Those are the basic facts.
Now let's look at what we have accomplished in almost 23 years of publication.
We have published more than 4,700 pages about neighborhood issues in 428 editions.
Currently, we distribute to about 8,000 families citywide.
In our pages you have gotten information you could not have gotten anywhere else. Included have been news stories about things that directly affected you, features about people that you know, informative columns and photographs that have enlightened and delighted you.
We have always been there when you needed us providing information you needed to preserve and improve your neighborhood.
Even the stories we have not run have benefited you.
When we did not run stories about city or neighborhood groups, it was not because we did not cover them. More than likely we did — just in case they had some thing on their agenda that might affect you.
You knew that if something did happen we would tell you about it.
If we have a bias, it is to people who live in a neighborhood over people who make their money there.
Your neighborhood is safer, cleaner and quieter because your neighbors use the information to improve your neighborhood.
Year after year for more than 22 years the service has continued to improve.
Just in the past couple of years our coverage has doubled, bringing the benefits to even a greater number of people, and our distribution has increased significantly.
We have not changed except to improve our service over the 22 years we have been publishing.
And what has it cost you?
For the great majority, nothing. For some of you, about the price of a night out a year. For a very few, it has cost a little more.
It's been tough, but we have survived.
We have no doubt that we will continue to survive but that is hardly the point.
After 22 years we would like to say that our readers understand what the publication is all about and are willing to support it as it deserves.
We are not some new bright idea that is going to improve your neighborhood. We are a winner that has been working for more than 22 years.
We have only one job to do and that is to provide the information you need to protect and improve your neighborhood. How much of that information is up to you.
It's simple.
The more you support us the more you and your neighbors benefit.
GPC
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