It took a while to get to this point. Electricians, carpenters and accountants streamed in and out of our downtown Kalispell office for two months, rigging the 3,000 square-foot space into our headquarters. We assembled the desks, hammered together a stand for the printer, plugged in the phones.
We’re a small team – the majority University of Montana graduates – that jumped at the chance to create something different.
It’s still journalism. We aim to be accurate, fair and thought-provoking. But we power this weekly newspaper with our Web site; the news engine we will update daily. Flatheadbeacon.com will be a complement, not an afterthought, to the print edition. It’s a place to interact, contribute your thoughts, view slide shows and event calendars, and tell us what we do wrong and — sometimes — right. To many, the online product will be more useful than the print. Fine with us.
We have no agenda beyond good storytelling. Our print and electronic pages will include breaking news, sports, analysis and commentary that lauds, carps on and illuminates local issues. You will see few, if any, national or international stories. A writing coach once suggested, “Write about what you know.” We know Montana.
We encourage those, experienced or not, who want to contribute a story or host a community Web site to e-mail or contact our office. Pitch us an idea or show off your portfolio. If we like it, we will compensate you.
The Beacon is not about to boast that we can do it better than the local, established media that employ fine writers, some of whom we have read for years.
We’re taking a different approach; there is more than one way to swing a hammer. Flathead County is approaching 100,000 strong and the greater Flathead area long ago passed that milestone. There’s a place, and a need, for us.
And we’re confident, after you greet us with cold, hard skepticism, you’ll find the Flathead Beacon is an attractive, fair-minded new medium – eager to serve the greater Flathead Valley.