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Brian Wilson

It is hard to be in multiple places at once.

Since the beginning of the year, the newsroom at The Star News has consisted of Sports Editor Matt Frey and myself.

This is not to say we have been totally alone. We have other staff members who work with area businesses with advertising, adjust photos and all the other tasks needed to get the paper in your mailbox each week.

In addition, Ginna Young out of our sister publication the Courier-Sentinel in Cornell has pitched in, covering Gilman village board for the past several years and since last year my daughter, Elizabeth, has been helping out covering Rib Lake village and school board and other things as needed. In addition we have been helped out by our mentorship students Nakeita and Collin who are hopefully learning what a fun and fulfilling job newspaper reporting can be.

Since Matt has more than enough sports on his plate to keep him busy, especially during playoff season, the lion’s share of meeting and event coverage and feature story writing falls to me.

Lucky me. No, I mean that. While I will occasionally whine about not being able to do the sorts of things I imagine people who have “normal” jobs with “normal” schedules get to do, this is the career path I chose for myself, and by extension my family, when I got my first real reporting job out of college about 28 years ago.

While I will find myself doodling in the margins of my notebook as auditors drone on reading the boilerplate findings in their always-exciting annual reports, for the most part I find the workings of government to be very interesting and, sometimes even exciting.

I keep in contact on a regular basis with other people like me around the country and world. I find it refreshing that while we may have different words for parking lots, municipal boards or even fire departments, the issues and activities are much the same around the world. It reminds me that beyond any superficial differences we are all fundamentally the same in caring about the wellbeing of our children, our communities and the people we call our neighbors.

While I am often feeling frazzled about being pulled in 12 directions at once, I am seldom bored.

The worst thing is when I have to decide between multiple things going on at one time. This was the case last Monday night. The Medford School board meeting was moved up a week due to the district having its spring break next week, the Medford city council moved their meeting back a day due to the oh-so-busy winter primary election, and Gilman School Board had its regular monthly meeting. Did I also mention there was the midwinter band concert at Medford Area Senior High School that night as well?

The challenge in these situations is determining where I need to be in order to get the information for you, our readers.

Back when I was a journalism student at Northwestern University the concert of newsworthiness was pounded into us. In general, the more people that could be potentially impacted by a decision, the more newsworthy it becomes. So county government which impacts about 22,000 people across the whole county generally takes a higher starting position than a town board meeting which might impact a few hundred people. While broad impact is a place to start, it is not the only factor. For example, sometimes decisions made could have major consequences, such as a town board discussing a permit request for a factory farm, or the city council approving a developer’s agreement for a factory that will employ hundreds.

Along the way, I try to get to as many things as I can in the community, but sometimes we can’t be in more than one place at a time. Add to this that with my son being a junior in high school, I have the pressing realization that there are times when the need to be a dad outweighs just about everything below Main Street burning down, again.

I am eternally grateful to the many people in the community who will see that we aren’t at something and snap a picture or two on their phones and send them to us. Newspapers need to be reflections of their communities. Having people submit things to us helps ensure that The Star News continues to reflect as well as be a part of the community. And if you happen to know someone who wants to do some part-time reporting, give me a holler.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.