The three musketeers of NewCastleNow.org — Christine Yeres, Anne Marie Fallon and Susie Pender — can hardly believe the pace they’ve had to keep to put out their weekly hyperlocal edition. “It’s tons of work from Tuesday night through Thursday night into Friday morning around 4 a.m.,” says Yeres, “But then we’re free to live our lives until the following Tuesday afternoon.
NewCastleNOW.org has become a vibrant, thriving local fixture, attracting 57 citizen content contributors. Remarkably, they’ve raised enough revenue through advertising from realtors and local businesses to cover their costs. But even there, Yeres admits she hasn’t had a moment to actually calculate the receipts.
NewCastleNOW.org has clearly filled a void in the community, becoming an All Things Local Considered for Chappaqua. Stories about leash laws and emergency drills, the chamber orchestra and the Cub Scouts, are coupled with regular features such as a column by local librarians and weekly police, ambulance and fire department blotters. The site now features dynamic slide shows of everything from the ceremony honoring the retiring police chief to high school students who spent their spring break rebuilding New Orleans. The site’s prominent links to local weather, traffic and train information are a critical and savvy service to commuters.
Dear Editors,
Looking back at the news in ‘07 brings to mind the lyrics of the Beatles’ “A Day in The Life” – “I heard the news today, oh boy!” – sung with a heavy hearted sigh. But wait! There is a shining star, NewCastleNOW.org!
You do a fabulous job in keeping us abreast of local news, opinions and events. And for me, there’s no question that by being better informed, I feel more a part of my community. Just wanted to say many thanks!
~Sharon Rosen Lopez
Meanwhile, the editors are navigating the tricky terrain of being citizen journalists who cover the place where they live. “The three of us are involved in various issues and are quite opinionated ourselves,” explains Yeres. “But we try to cover fairly those issues we feel strongly about and believe that the advantage to us of knowing the issues from very close up — even from inside — is greater than the difficulty of remaining balanced in our coverage. And we’re pretty confident that what people want is not just straight coverage of all news, but for us to pick and choose what’s important and present it to them in an interesting way.”
Dear Editor,
As long-time residents here and after raising our four children in the school system, your presence is long overdue. Thanks to all the folks who are taking time to cover so many topics in such an objective way. We really needed you. Keep up the excellent work.
~Vera and Bob Bruno
Even so, NewCastleNOW.org’s attention to hot issues like education and development has made some officials a bit nervous.
“We did what we said we would, and have acted in a rather newspaperly way,” says Yeres. “We solicit articles from residents, accept pitches from anyone but don’t promise that we’ll publish, and write quite a bit of the copy ourselves. We’ve resisted soliciting instantaneous online opinion and we like it this way: people write letters, and they think about what they write.”
While NewCastleNOW.org has had great success getting residents to participate, they’re still on the lookout for more, as evidenced in a recent shout out to readers: “Calling all Sports Nuts! We want your sports news. Games, stories, scores, news!”
Even without extensive sports coverage, it’s clear that NewCastleNOW.org has a winning team that is making many touchdowns for its community.
