Highland Park People's Voice is Not Happening.

Lisa Stolarski
Feb 16, 2023
3 min read

Hi Parkers. Lisa here. I am finished with writing and editing the Highland Park People's Voice. I don't know what I will do with the website. If you happen to have an idea let me know.

I spent most of the winter working on the news hub almost every day because I wanted for Highland Park to have a place for up-to-date local news and information. I imagined a site where every Parker was welcome to write news stories, opinion pieces, post announcements and put things on the calendar. I grew up in a small community. Back in the 70's we decided if we were going to pack our lunches before school or buy cafeteria food based on information that dropped on our doorsteps in the morning.

In a number of ways the local newspaper was a better system for keeping a community informed than the internet that has (mostly) replaced it. There was not a 24 hour news cycle, for starters, so there was a finite number of things a person was going to learn from the news in a day. This allowed a girl to see to other business, like doing homework, playing outside, learning disco dance moves and climbing trees.

Another thing that was better about the small town newspaper was that when people disagreed with each other on the opinion pages they concerned themselves with the merits of arguments more-so than with gossip and innuendo. This is not because people in the 1970's were better people, or kinder or smarter, or anything like that. It is because newspapers had editors and editors were professionals with standards. By and large people put their best writing, their best arguments, and their best selves forward on the editorial pages because editors didn't put up with punk-ass crap. Editors were referees who could call foul if people did not adhere to decorum in their public writing. In the age of social media, things such as decorum, standards, professionalism, even the notion of meritorious arguments are fading, like the local newspaper, and dwindling from this earth.

I thought it might be possible for an online news hub to serve Highland Park in that space between meritorious arguments and school lunch schedules. I just can't do it by myself. When my collaborators and I started out in November, we voted to call the paper the Highland Park People's Voice, not the Lisa's Stolarski's Voice. For all of the well-meaning Parkers who have said they love this idea, I have not seen enough interest coming from the community for me to continue. When I say interest, I really mean copy. I mean ink on paper, san serif on a google-doc, dents in a clay tablet or chalk on the sidewalk. There is no Highland Park People's Voice without the efforts of Highland Park people. I will offer no claim pretending otherwise.

I had a short window of time that I could dedicate to this start-up. I have said from the beginning that this cannot be a one woman show. I operate a seasonal business and my planning begins in February each year. I work a lot of hours through the end of October. I had hoped by now we could get the news hub to the point where we could focus on building the readership. Instead we are struggling after three months to build a functional team of writers. Without writers the news hub has nothing to offer Highland Parkers to read.

Ergo, Highland Park People's Voice is not Happening. I'm unhappy that it seems I have wasted my time. On the other hand, I learned a lot through this exercise, so not all is lost. Here are some take-aways...