Voices.
When you get right down to it, that’s often the only thing we have left, right?
We are on the precipice of the ultimate “voice” day in the United States — Election Day. (I know, it’s basically morphed into “Election Month,” but roll with me here.)
On Tuesday, hundreds of millions of Americans will have their voices heard. They’ll be voting for president, or Congress, or their local city council or various bond measures, or any combination of the above. Say what you will about our country and how it may or may not stack up with the rest of the civilized world, but our elections remain sacrosanct in my eyes — a true backbone of our democracy.
Sort of like newspapers.
More than 2,500 American newspapers have vanished in the past 25 years, and many of the ones still left are struggling to survive. The Enterprise-Record, I’m proud to say, is not in either category. We’ve been around for 171 years and remain, in fact, the oldest business in Chico.
You can give yourselves a lot of the credit for that, and today I’m here to thank you — and invite you to come along for the ride in 2025.
I’m going to start with a cross-section of our readership that (believe it or not) is near and dear to my heart: The people who write letters to the editor.
Look, election season is challenging, and I’ve had a few (shall we say) “spirited” discussions with some of you over concerns I’ve had with some letters. In most cases, we reached consensus on what was factual and reasonable and your letter got in. In fewer than five cases, it didn’t happen, and I feel badly about that.
On the other hand, since we announced the start of “election letter season” on Labor Day weekend, the E-R has published no fewer than 160 election-related letters.
That is a huge number. It’s more than any other newspaper I know of in the north state; I think it’s tragic that many newspapers don’t receive (or print) letters to the editor at all any more. Personally, I cannot imagine a newspaper without them.
But we get them, and by any measure, we get a lot of them. We actually got more this two-month election season than we did in 2022 (145) or even 2020 (140). That’s because so many of you sat down and took the time to put your thoughts into an email and sent it to us. That is an investment of your time, and trust, that I will never take for granted.
Once again, we’ll just barely manage to get all of the election-season letters into the paper before the election. Typically, the number of letters we get drops for a few days afterward, then spikes again a few days later.
So, this seems like the perfect time to announce a couple of other ways you can make your voices heard: By applying to serve a one-year term as a member of our editorial board, or by entering our annual “North State Voices” competition.
We’ll start with the former. A few years back, I started the tradition of selecting a member of the community (or two, or three) to serve on our editorial board. This means you participate in a weekly hour-long meeting with our staff board members (that would be myself and weekend editor Evan Tuchinsky) and voice your opinions as we discuss local topics of interest. As anyone who has served on our board over the past four years can tell you, this is not a token seat. Everyone is heard and every opinion matters, and every editorial (including hits and misses) gets reviewed by the entire board before hitting the press.
I never go into this looking for a set number of people, and I never ask if applicants are liberal or conservative. We just want a mix of open-minded citizens who follow the news and are able to have civil, constructive conversations.
Full honesty: I like our current group of community members so much, I asked in March if they’d be willing to stay on through the November election. They did. Thank you, Scott Chalmers, Brenda McLaughlin and Cris Boyle — you’ve left a tough act to follow, just as the groups before you.
If this non-paid opportunity sounds like something you’d like to pursue, please email me at the address at the bottom of this column. We aim to have a new board in place by January 1.
It’s also time, again, to choose a new group of North State Voices columnists. This tradition, entering its 21st year, opens the door for four of you to write a column that will run on our Opinion page. We run one per week, so each of the four columnists get to write 13 times in a calendar year. You will receive a stipend for your work.
All we need from you is a cover letter telling us why you’d like to be a North State Voices columnist, and two sample columns. You can go up to 650 or 700 words in your columns.
You can enter this competition by emailing a cover letter and your sample columns to voices@chicoer.com. We’ll select four winners by mid-December.
Having had the privilege to be your editor for almost six years now, I can truthfully say the process of choosing editorial board members — and the North State Voices columnists — are among my favorite parts of the job. So, too, are reading your letters.
In each case, it’s for the same reason: Our loyal readers are engaging with us by lending their voice, and I cannot put into words how much that means to me.
Once again, for all of that, I thank you.
Mike Wolcott is the editor of the Enterprise-Record. He can be reached at mwolcott@chicoer.com.