Behold the mighty flea!

People who read this blog know that I think the era of the media’s stranglehold on information is at an end…particularly the pre-eminence enjoyed by the daily newspapers. They can’t match the internet for speed, expertise, accuracy or range of viewpoints.

They’re dead or dying, feasting on memories of grandeur but consigned by technology to an agonizingly slow demise.

I guess that makes me a flea…as in one of the last fleas to jump off the dead (or in this case, dying) dog.

See, I decided that as long as I’m writing for my own enjoyment on this blog, I may as well write for others’ enjoyment too…not to mention a little money. So yesterday, I went to The Ashtabula Star Beacon (a daily paper at which I was a reporter almost 20 years ago) and offered my services as a freelancer. They immediately accepted. I’ll be providing meeting coverage and occasional features from the town in which I reside.

I found out the editor was the same guy who’d been there when I left in 1987…scary.

I went home and checked the township meeting calendar. Whoops! There was a meeting last night. So for the first time in probably 15 years, I broke out my notebook and pens and toddled on over to the meeting…ready to demand the answers people are looking for in the operation of their township.

The meeting was 20 minutes long at most and pretty banal. Apparently young hooligans at the skate park are taking glass from the recycling dumpsters and smashing it against the wall of the restrooms. Now who would have thought that skateboarders were an unruly lot? Donations were received and public compliments were awarded to civic groups and two local police detectives who helped bust an alleged plan to target civic leaders with pipe bombs.

There was even a little humor: The police chief said the detectives “did a bang-up job…no pun intended.”

Fifteen minutes after the meeting was ended, I was home. I had the story done in half an hour. I emailed the story to the newspaper this morning as I’d neglected to get the address for their email drop box when I interviewed yesterday.

And so I’m back to being a very part-time flea on the back of an ailing dog, writing not only for myself and readers of my blog, but for the community…and money.