News flash | “Columbia residents file suit against NAWCC, alleging property damage from mural” – Columbia Spy
“October is National Pizza Month | Lancaster Newspapers‘ readers “pick the 17 best pizza parlors in Lancaster County” – Lancaster Online
Paywall defender | Oh, yeah, in case you follow a link at Columbia news, views and reviews and it leads you to a paywall, we apologize. Last night’s media transparency panelist strongly defended news site paywalls.
Orange Street News | A follow up on one of our favorite news sites: The Orange Street News. Though its publisher, teenager Hilde Kate Lysiak and her family have moved from Selinsgrove to Arizona she continues to publish; this month’s special news cover story is the news making exclusive Michelle Obama interview. She’s a shining example of local news coverage.
Real news | White woman found guilty – The Dallas Morning News
Painting vs staining | In light of the many conversations about painting brick, these articles may add to the informaiton some seek:
Should I paint my brick house?
The most important differences between painting and staining brick
Think this is “soft brick” at the Historic Columbia Market House? Should it have been painted? Should it have been sand blasted?
It’s October | Today’s Weather!
Like cats and dogs | A fire officer in Virginia once told us: “Cops are like cats & firefighters are like dogs.” Though of this while reading this article at Penn Live.
Columbia news, views & reviews 
Two Comments…
“Paywall Defender:”
This is a big topic, with years of elements from Government sanctioned media consolidation to the Newspaper Business & Advertising collapse, but Paywalls will be vital to supporting small, local INDEPENDENT news.
We now have two generations—Millennials and GenZ’ers—who EXPECT everything on the internet to be FREE. This…this mindset is impossible to the future of true, independent creators who hope, beyond all hope, to make “a living.”
The current “economics” of media/publishing, which once relied on advertising and circulation profits to support their business, is done. The past and present generation of journalists, writers and “creators” are now wrestling with this environment. A variety of new businesses/start-ups like Substack and Patreon are aiding journalists and other creatives to make a few bucks on their efforts.
I think the future for small, local indie news will be a balance between free and “premium.” Maybe a Patreon-like pay tier with extras? I dunno…I’ve been brainstorming this type of “business model” and publication with others.
“Painted Brick.”
I remember, when I first moved to Columbia, investigating the local history and commerce. And, I’m pretty sure I read an article from a local historian/retired history professor, that the brick produced in Columbia, was a variety that was produced TO BE PAINTED…
Yes? No? Maybe So?
You bring up really great points. We, too, have been wrestling with this for years. About 10 years ago, we ran the numbers on a “hold it in your hands” publication for Columbia. Still have the prototypes based on a model of a magazine sized format. It would have been a free-distribution, based on advertising support. Threw away that model.
Ultimately we are what we are now, an on-line citizen journalism model We encourage submissions and news releases to accompany our impressions; or news gathering and reporting and, yes, opinions.
We try to make it to as many meetings as we can. We’d love to share the expressions of elected public servants, but most of them snub and sneer at the prospect of an online publication. Hell, many more times than imagined in council meetings, the mayor and some councillors denigrated “blog” sites as ours and Columbia Spy.
In truth, Columbia news, views & reviews and Columbia Spy are quite like the newspapers of colonial America and post-Soviet nations. Independent persons, passionate about chronicling the goings-on, events, happenings, etc in a community, decide to keep a journal and share that journal. In these local cases, though, it’s not about turning a profit. We do this because we believe that people ought to be able to find out what’s happening at the micro level.
We believe, given our meager resources, that people ought to see what’s happening in governance at the borough council and the schools. We don’t get the rote, standard pablum fed to us that larger for-profit media do by those in charge of the borough, the police department, the school district. We do try to attend meetings, submit right-to-know documents and get answers by talking with real people.
Are we going to be the panacea? No.
Will we be right all the time? No.
Do we have all the answers? No.
We do have the questions and we try to pose them in difficult to get answers environments. Questions like who and why were certain people meeting at the School District’s offices. Did you catch the answers in the video from last night’s meeting? What’s the story about that borough loan to a private investor?
Questions like what about that street fight? Should that not have been a police department news release? Not if someone is trying to burnish a reputation that is viewed as the way some want Columbia to be seen.
So, for now, both of us will try to bring the news – good and bad; depending on the viewpoints of the beholder – to our online readers every day. Thank you for reading Columbia news, views & reviews and Columbia Spy. And for sharing news tips with each of us.
Without publications like Columbia News, Views, and Reviews and Columbia Spy, most of us would be/are kept in the dark about local happenings that are important for the people to know. Transparency is necessary, even though so many business leaders and politicians want to keep us unaware of what they are doing that could expose such things as corruption and other bad things.