Thanks for your nice words. You know, if this weren’t so much fun, I might be driving a truck because I’d me making a much better living at it. But the allure of “the spark” remains.

I knew you were writing for ICT but did not know it had evolved into a full-time gig. Congratulations.

And you’re right, it is a little lonely, although I’m starting to run into all the camera people from CATV6 at these meetings. They also make for interesting company …

Truth be known, I love what I do, always have, always will! I think you see the same passion with your writing and blog, with Gayle, and her Corner Report, and with Mike in radio.

I can think of no better cause than to distribute information, foster debate and public comment, and keep people involved.

Where the main stream media has failed, hopefully we all will be successful!…

As Sy Simms said from the Mens Wearehouse…” An educated consumer is our best customer!”

It must be lonely out there on the local beat all by yourself without other reporters to provide that sounding board and collegiality.

I would still be out there, but the main reason I stopped covering local news is because I accepted a staff position from Indian Country Today (www.indiancountry.com), a national weekly whose heaviest subscribers are legislators in Washington, D.C.

I totally enjoyed covering town news for the dozen or so years I was at WAR (Waterbury American Republic, as many former reporters from that paper call it), and still miss it, but the ICT job was an offer I couldn’t resist — the opportunity write at a higher level for a prestigous national newspaper that draws a broad audience from all over the country. It’s a very different journalistic experience when the secretary of a federal department has his press secretary call you and offer you an exclusive interview.

But I’m still in touch with many of my local contacts; there are some tantalizing local stories just waiting to be written and I’m hoping to find the time to write them soon. So stay tuned to what’s happening on The Corner!

Just a quick note on the Journal Register papers — the Litchfield County Times, Torrington Register, et al. The reason you see them fading is because their “business model” is essentially nothing but cost-cutting to the bone at the expense of coverage. Their parent, the JRC (trades on the NYSE) has seen its stock price collapse in recent times because investors see the enormous debt that the company carries, see the inability of the company to show organic revenue growth, and see that JRC may soon have trouble servicing its debt. The silver lining to a JRC decline and fall is that other, better capitalized and committed media enterprises are likely to pick up the pieces and improve them. The market here is indeed limited, but for papers like the LJ that deliver real news to readers and real readers to local advertisers, there is indeed a future.