This week sees the birth of a new independent newspaper in Harvard––emphasis on the “new.” Four enthusiastic Harvard residents with experience in journalism and communications technology––former Harvard Post editor Laura Andrews, editor and photographer Lisa Aciukewicz, writer Julie Moberly, and information technology expert Worth Robbins––are putting their expertise together to create the Harvard Press.
This new paper won’t be an exercise in nostalgia, although the four founders are committed to producing a journal that will bring the town what it used to have––a newspaper that covers the town and its people in depth, and with accuracy and flair. Rather, the new paper will be a mix of the traditional and the new. Just as Harvard Post founders Ed Miller and Kathleen Cushman were in the vanguard of community journalism when they envisioned the old Post as a small, independent, personally idiosyncratic newspaper in the spirit of the ’70s, so the four publishers of the new Harvard Press are embracing the most modern 21st-century communications technology––even as they preserve the best of what we used to have.
The Harvard Press will have a strong web presence, in their words, while at the same time it will bring townspeople the familiar format of a tab paper that will arrive weekly in their mailboxes, bearing news of their friends and neighbors and of the issues that make Harvard tick.
As the former editor of the old Harvard Post, I am thrilled to see these four take up the mantle of personal and comprehensive journalism, and I will be cheering them on. And I will be remembering, as I hope all of us do, that a newspaper is only as good as its readers.
If you have an idea for a story, call the editor. If you miss the chatty old “People” column, send your news in to the paper: your triumphs and milestones, not just formal announcements of weddings and graduations. Did you get a promotion? Did your kid get chosen to represent Bromfield in a math tournament? Did your mother appear on Jeopardy? Send a few lines to the Press. If you found the old classified ads a source of news at least as interesting as the stories on the front page, then advertise in the classifieds yourself, and make yours fun to read. It really is the participation of the readers that makes a newspaper great.
For several years now, many residents have been expressing their desire for a truly personal town paper tailored to the specific needs and interests of Harvard. The new Harvard Press could well be it. I’m wishing Laura, Lisa, Julie and Worth all the luck and success in the world.
Ann Levison of East Bare Hill Road was the editor of the Harvard Post for more than 20 years.
