The bright green sticky note I found on my desk this morning read "No change."
Too bad it meant the phone lines.
Change is everywhere in my world right now and, like many people, I'm not especially good at it. I want to eat the same thing for breakfast -- in the car, on my way to work -- then do my early morning tasks in the approved order before anyone interrupts me. And then I want the rest of my day to line up like happy little rubber ducklings and waddle on until quittin' time.
Well, that all went somewhere in a handbasket about two weeks ago. Those of us who grew up at The Springdale News have been around through the courtship, engagement and marriage to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Two weeks ago, we decided to make a baby.
You're reading it now.
I'd like to tell you it's all gone as smoothly as a silken-winged butterfly flitting from flower to flower.
But even I am not that delusional.
Like any new parents, my colleagues and I have had some sleepless nights, some long days and some massive headaches. It's not that we haven't given birth to thousands -- literally thousands -- of babies before but never together. We have different parenting styles. We have different sleep schedules. We have different ideas about everything from onesies to formula.
And nobody likes change.
In the middle of trying to get this baby born and diapered and fed and burped, we've also had different people take on different tasks, many people change physical locations -- which is just like moving from one house to another, I promise you -- we've gotten new neighbors in our newsrooms, and some of us have had to think about where to find the coffee pot -- a disaster brewing for sure!
Almost miraculously, nobody has whined. To the best of my knowledge, no one has cried. And everyone has remained dedicated to bringing our readers the very best possible news package we can.
Laurinda Joenks and I, both Springdale News "old guard," counted up, and we believe this is the 11th major change we've gone through at this newspaper. It started about 1989, when our publisher at the time announced we were switching from afternoon to morning publication -- and get out if we didn't like it.
He wasn't good at change either -- although his successors have certainly been more gracious.
Since then, we've been through mergers and lawsuits, acquisitions and upheaval, and yet, here we are.
Some people wonder why. News is available free all over the Internet. What role does our not-yet-beautiful new baby play?
Anybody can write anything on the Internet. It's that simple. It's every bad TV talk show rolled into one. I can start a blog and write about how I'm a secret agent in my spare time. How do you know I'm not?
As creative writing, that's great. But if I'm trying to convince you I am the one who rescued an American fighter pilot from Iraq -- one that's been in national news stories -- that's a problem.
And that's why newspapers continue to exist. We research, vet, report, analyze and promise the very best accuracy and truth you can find anywhere. Trust me, nobody does this job for wealth, power or fame. We do it because we believe.
On my side of it, in Features, newspapers are a place to bring communities together. It's where you can meet your neighbors, "ordinary people doing extraordinary things," as we like to say about the Our Town section. It's where you can find arts and entertainment news, news about your church, news about the nonprofits you support.
We're not perfect, but we are proud of the baby we've already seen evolve from squirmy and wrinkled to round-faced and smiling. I would love for you to come and meet the people who are parenting like 16-armed octopi, and coincidentally, there's an open house from 4 to 7 p.m. today at our home at 2560 N. Lowell Road in Springdale. There will be food and music, and all you have to do is RSVP at nwadg.eventbrite.com.
Please come by! Think of it as a baby shower! (I could use a pacifier or two!)
Becca Martin-Brown is an award-winning columnist and Features editor for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email her at [email protected].
NAN Our Town on 01/22/2015