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Commentary
It's time for moving on, but not for leaving
By Dale Bryant
Two years ago, the five papers that comprised the community newspaper portion of the Metro family quietly began the process of becoming a separate entity, a company of community newspapers with a total focus on serving communities within Silicon Valley. We called our emerging company Silicon Valley Community Newspapers (SVCN).
With more autonomy, Metro could devote its full attention to its growing role as a regional voice for alternative news, and we in the communities could grow and improve in our own area. The most dramatic accomplishment was the creation of a new newspaper, The Campbell Reporter. Now we are six community newspapers.
For the most part, though, the changes over the past two years have been internal--separating functions and redefining procedures. We added our SVCN logo to the Metro logo on our staff box; those of us on the community side of the house changed our email address from metronews.com to svcn.com; and we began listing SVCN employment opportunities separately from Metro employment opportunities in our classified sections.
I began editing the Saratoga News in the summer of 1998. I had already been editing the Los Gatos Weekly-Times since 1993. When I was growing up, I lived in Saratoga and went to Los Gatos High School, so both communities feel like home.
Over the past two years, I've taken on additional responsibilities as the managing editor of SVCN. No matter how much I took on, though, the one thing I was adamant about was that I would never give up my job as a community editor. Being a community editor has been a consuming passion for nearly eight years.
Recently, however, a number of factors converged to make me think it might be time to make a change. As SVCN prepares to move to its next phase, my managing editor responsibilities have grown. I've felt increasingly that neither the readers nor my staff were getting the attention they deserved from me. Not only was SVCN demanding more of my time, I was beginning to get excited about my expanding role in managing the editorial side of the community newspapers. I wanted to dive into the job.
The big question then was whether I could find an editor who inspired my confidence. Carlos Castillo fit the bill. I believe that with his background in journalism and a filmmaker's passion for telling people's stories, he will be an outstanding editor.
He came on board last week and began to learn the job. This week, I'm moving to the Saratoga office, but making frequent visits to Los Gatos for continued training. Saratoga will be my base for awhile. One thing I take very seriously is my responsibility to pass on to Carlos the local history and lore I've accumulated, both as a child growing up in Saratoga and as a Los Gatos High School grad.
I'll see Carlos frequently, and we'll talk on the phone and exchange emails several times a day. I'll still be involved in both the Weekly-Times and the Saratoga News, but without the weekly deadline pressure.
My email address won't change (dbryant@svcn.com), and I'll be reachable by phone in Saratoga at 408.867.6397, ext. 123. Or drop by and chat with me at our office in Saratoga. I look forward to spending some time in my old stomping grounds just up the bank from the creek where I spent many a happy day leaping over ripples from rock to rock.
Dale Bryant is the managing editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
