You may have noticed that I don’t often appear on this page. It’s not because of an absence of opinions — oh, do believe me, I have many of those, and many of them are controversial enough. More than anything, it’s a result of running low on time.

Putting together a column for this space is most often the last thing I do when putting together an issue of the Chronicle and, as someone who has been almost entirely driven by deadlines for most of his life, that usually means I haven’t left myself a whole lot of time to put my thoughts together and instead decide to put someone else on this page instead.

I also struggle a bit with the dreaded ‘imposter syndrome’ which I may have mentioned here before.

I was never properly trained on how to put a newspaper together, never went to jounalism school or art school or even pursued much in the way of post-secondary training, so I frequently find myself asking, “How the heck did I get here?”

I met recently with a TRU student who had an interest in journalism (hi Ellen!) and wanted to ask me questions about my experiences and opinions about the industry, and though my first thought was, what could she possibly learn from me, I happily met with her in late June.

And I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that I do have a lot of thoughts on the industry, and do have some stories and insights to share. They may not be the same thoughts or insights that everyone else has, and some of them may have been cultivated from my own unique history in publishing, but that doesn’t make them any less valid.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Something else that I like to tell myself is that there is still a place for newspapers in the 21st century. I’m not sure how many people would agree with that, or even how many should, but it’s why I’m here and why I hope to stick around for as long as I can. Because I like what we’re making here, and I think there’s a place for it in the media landscape.

The fact that we’ve decided to pursue the Chronicle as a non-profit organization is also really important to me. I could talk for hours about the inherent challenges of running a newspaper with a focus on the business side of things rather than the news side of things, but I’ll save that for another time. But at the end of the day, as much as you do need to keep the bills paid, you can’t do it at the expense of the content, because it’s the content that should be bringing people to your pages, to your news, to your stories.

In this issue we have stories about the goings-on at city council, about the growth of our farmers’ markets, and about the Pride parade. We have columns sharing perspectives from a number of local writers, community voices and perspectives in our letters and opinion pages, and advertisements from businesses who are seeking the attention of our audience.

And I think all of those things are absolutely vital to creating a community newspaper. Which is what we’re trying to do.

I may not know entirely what I’m doing here, or how I managed to convince the fine folks at the Kamloops Local News Society that I should be here, but I’m grateful that they’ve put their trust in my hands.