When members of the Park Bugle’s board walked a makeshift cardboard and newspaper sailboat down Como Avenue in the St. Anthony Park Fourth of July Parade, we were thinking it symbolized the launching of the paper into another 35 years of nonprofit community journalism. But at the end of the parade, a neighbor remarked that seeing Park Press board members squeezed inside that cardboard contraption made her think “we are all in the same boat.” Our little part in the parade symbolized to her that we—as a community—are all in this together.

Hours after the parade, I found this posting on an old friend’s Facebook site: “Happy Independence Day everyone. I’ve got to say, I prefer the notion of an Interdependence Day, though.”

I do, too. We aren’t independent. We don’t exist in isolation.

Naturalist and wilderness preservationist John Muir said it well: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

We’ve seen clear examples of that just this year: An erupting volcano in Iceland grounds flights in Europe. The horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is thousands of miles away, but it hits close to home when we find out that sticky brown crud is threatening Minnesota’s migratory loon population. A major manufacturer pulls up roots in Wisconsin and heads to Mexico, and that move sends ripples throughout many communities: the town it was in, the surrounding businesses, the local schools, even the state, which loses revenue when people lose their jobs and income.

Muir’s message is a good analogy for communities: The businesses, people and institutions are hitched to each other. We are dependent on our businesses to meet our needs and they rely on us to keep them going. We rely on our local schools and libraries to educate us, but they need us to continue to support them.

And that brings me back to the Park Bugle.

I’m Kristal Leebrick, the interim editor for the next few months while the governing board of Park Press Inc. goes through a long-range planning process in an effort to keep this newspaper a viable institution in your community. We began a couple of months ago when we conducted a reader survey (we’ll have those results to you soon). We’ve also formed a task force of community leaders who are looking at creating a sustainable business model for the Bugle. 

The last few years have not been kind to the news media, be it print, radio, television or online. Ad revenue is shrinking and we’ve seen our news sources shrink with it. Yet we still need vehicles in which to report and analyze community news and to promote the exchange of ideas.

At its core, a good community newspaper promotes the freedom of expression and encourages community participation. A community newspaper is a vital—and yes, interdependent—part of the communities we serve. We are fortunate that we still have a resource like the Bugle to keep us all hitched. We welcome your input as we look ahead to the Bugle’s future.