By Jock Lauterer
Carrboro Commons Advisor

With apologies to Bob Dylan: “The media they are a-changin’.”

Here we are, a student-produced Web-based e-zine that would have been impossible back in the ’80s when your columnist began teaching journalism.

Yet here we are - out with the second edition of this semester’s iteration of the Carrboro Commons. And it is with almost parental pride that I want to spotlight some of our coolest features.

• Podcasting our stories? Yes, I’m told by our podcasting guru, Tim Reese, that it will be happening with this edition. Who knew? I’m learning about this tech just as fast as anyone.

• Our bilingual columnist: Christina Lopez caught my attention last year in Newswriting class. When the Salisbury native signed up for JOMC-459 Community Journalism, she told me she wanted the Latino beat. She’s a natural for a bilingual column, I’m sure you will agree. Check out her fascinating story on WCOM- FM’s Radio Pa’Lante.

• Carrboro High School Columnist: What does the new high school look like? What are the thoughts of a future high school student, walking those halls now, knowing he will be a student there this next fall? Rising CHS junior Daniel Matchar takes us there this week with his inaugural column for the Commons.

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Last fall when the Carrboro Commons was a-birthin’ I always thought it should be an exclusively Web-based entity. But I didn’t want to make any snap judgments nor impose my will on my staff of students.

Practically speaking a print version would take real money - as a former community newspaper publisher, I knew this fact more than most. While a online “paper” - why, it’s almost without cost. Nine bucks nails down the url, and another hundred or so lines up your server. Our expenditure to date has been $131. 23.
But in launching this start-up, I didn’t want to make too many assumptions. So last fall I sent out my 14 community journalism students to ask Carrboro folks what they wanted in a local newspaper. And what we learned was a shocker.
Nine out of ten potential readers said online would be fine but they wanted print too.
Music to the ears of an old publisher.
Now if Bill Gates would just drop us a bundle…

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Truth be told, the origins of the Carrboro Commons were more synergistic than I alluded in the last installment of Dear Carrboro.
And it is fitting that such a grand notion be a shared experience. So, in the interest of full disclosure: It was Bubba’s idea.
Let the record show: I stand corrected.
I overstated it when I said the idea of creating a newspaper for Carrboro was mine alone.
Here’s what I said:

I remember the moment of divine creation: Monday, Sept. 25. Towards the end of another class of “Community Journalism,” and the 14 students were packing up their books after having heard from guest lecturer Dickson. “Bubba” had regaled my kids with “war stories” about his feisty but fun-loving weekly, the Hoke County News-Journal, a relentlessly local, kick-butt-and-take-names sort of independent weekly I value so highly. Dickson had gotten my kids to brainstorm about what makes a great local newspaper, so the room was still humming with energy.
“How about a newspaper for Carrboro?” I heard myself blurt. (Where did that come from?) Jaws dropped, eyes flew open. All 14 kids were starting at me incredulously, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.

Upon reading the above, Bubba recounted the situation differently, and it is a vital distinction. He recalls that after the “war story” bit, I had asked what had attracted him to Carrboro. He responded that his wife had many positive connections to Chapel Hill and that “Carrboro is just a cool small town.” Then Bubba told me, “At this point I uttered, maybe muttered, the phrase, ‘and Carrboro needs a newspaper.’”
And we both agree at that point, I did in fact blurt the infamous line: “Ok, kids, How about a newspaper for Carrboro?”
I agree with Bubba. It’s important to get origins down correctly, because one day we’ll look back on this era and shake our heads at the organic, synergistic inspiration that was coursing through that classroom last fall. And we all count ourselves blessed to have been a part of that magic moment.

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