Here’s an offer for regular readers of the Bucks County Herald.
How would you like to be part of a group that joins me in our newsroom for an hour one night a month to get an inside look at the Herald’s operation?
Depending on the month, you’ll hear from the newspaper’s department heads, editors, its publisher and representatives from the Bucks County Herald Foundation, the public charity that owns the newspaper.
You’ll get insights on editorial decisions, previews of what’s coming up in the Herald and how journalism in general and our newspaper in particular are changing and evolving.
In return, we want your opinions, thoughts and suggestions on an ongoing basis for one year.
If you join our first-ever Bucks County Herald Reader Advisory Panel, you’ll get more than a tour and a speech. You’ll get a seat at the table and the opportunity to help the Herald prioritize what’s important in what we cover.
You’ll get the chance to discuss issues in your communities with those who work at the newspaper and with your fellow panelists.
By the way, those panelists won’t all share your views. We will pick a panel that is diverse in every way possible, from political leanings, to age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and socio-economic circumstances.
We would ask that panelists be faithful readers of the Herald and people who’d describe themselves as caring about their community. We would also ask that neither they nor their spouses currently hold political office or plan to run for office in 2024 or 2025.
I’ve seen initiatives like this work before, where the panelists patted the newspaper’s editors on the back when they did well and called them out when they didn’t.
And, at the end of the year, the newspaper was more plugged in to its communities, more accustomed to hearing from a wider assortment of voices and, as a result, better positioned to serve all of its readers.
My hope is that it will be those things for the Herald, too. It’s also my hope that, after a year of productive dialogue, panelists who see the world in different ways can come together and have a civil, passionate discussion, even if they don’t all leave in agreement. We could use more of that in our society, frankly.
Interested in embarking on this year-long journey as a member of the Bucks County Herald Reader Advisory Panel?
Send me an email at janastasi@buckscountyherald.com. I’ll respond with a questionnaire to fill out. The panel members will be announced on Feb. 1.
John Anastasi is Editor-in-Chief of the Bucks County Herald and can be reached at janastasi@buckscountyherald.com.
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