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The Beacon, One Year In …

By Kellyn Brown

About three months after we began printing the Flathead Beacon, a grizzled man gripping a copy of our latest edition entered our Main Street office. Calmly, but directly, he asked me, “Are you ignorant or something?” I replied as best I could that I wasn’t, which then began a long conversation about the lack of affordable housing in the valley. He was passionate about that issue and quickly educated me on why he felt one side had been ignored in a story we ran on our front page.

Aside from initially being dressed down, the conversation was cordial and, by the end, validating. Not because the reader and myself agreed on everything, but because the story mattered to him and he wanted to tell me why he thought we missed the point. That is, for better or worse, what our staff had hoped for from the beginning: Write news that’s relevant, in a newsroom that’s transparent, by a staff that’s unpretentious. Fifty-two issues in, we’re still working on all three.

The learning curve has been steep for our relatively young editorial staff. When we launched we had strong ties to Montana, but less so to the Flathead. The issues facing this valley are at once common (affordable housing, education funding and government services) and unique (public land management, road dust and dueling municipalities). We have delved into both, learning the ropes of local politics and hot-button issues, and garnering both praise and heckles along the way.

Much has changed since that debut issue on May 23, 2007. For one, we have grown from 24 to 44 pages. We quickly added to our news section. And, more recently, we expanded our business and review sections and added the “Kitchen Guy,” whose lasagna recipe I am sure to soon botch. The staff here has also gone from nervous outsiders to eager participants in the community: hosting barbecues, joining chamber organizations and participating in, among other competitions, an organized dodgeball league. None of us would have the audacity to call ourselves locals; instead we eagerly surround ourselves with them, picking your brains everywhere from the church to the pub.

And that, in fact, may be what has changed the most in the last year – our relationship with this place that most of you have called home for much longer. Personally, I lived in Missoula and Bozeman for three years apiece before coming here and now have little taste for either, save for a periodic weekend visit. The Flathead, instead of attracting a certain demographic, finds itself mixing blue and white collars, industry and environment in a balance that is both trying and rewarding. I was told there is no other place quite like it here. I was told right.

In the year ahead, you are sure to see more changes to both our Web site, which we continuously tweak and advance, and our print edition, which is also ever-evolving. What will not change is that initial mission. It’s simple really: Since we have the privilege of covering this community, those who we write about should shape this newspaper.

When publisher Tom Donnelly and I first sat on folding chairs in our vacant downtown Kalispell office more than a year ago, we knew the task ahead was daunting. It still is.

Thanks for your encouragement and support over the last year. And for your skepticism and criticism, well, thanks for that too.