For George

Last Friday, The Berkshire Beacon’s Owner and Editor, George C. Jordan III, suffered a minor heart attack. George is stable now and recovering, and our thoughts and prayers are with him as we wish for his speedy return to the job.

The Berkshire Beacon exists because George C. Jordan III had a dream: To create a quality newspaper that would serve both seasonal residents and locals in The Berkshires.

After a foiled effort at the beginning of the millennium, George
restarted The Berkshire Beacon in May 2011. Many thought he was crazy; some still do, but a year and a half later The Berkshire Beacon still exists and is going strong.

With its signature mix of hard-hitting in-depth news coverage, detailed profile pieces, entertaining columns and intricately-designed ads, all with a local focus regular readers know can only be found in the pages of The Berkshire Beacon, our publication continues to increase in circulation and prominence and shows no sign of slowing down.

Working at The Berkshire Beacon is a bit of a roller coaster ride, and although the job isn’t easy, it’s also incredibly rewarding for everyone involved. The amount of freedom given to those who work at The Beacon is matched only by the quality of work that is demanded of us, whether we write articles, sell ads or deliver papers.

None of us would be working at The Beacon today if George hadn’t believed in us. It’s no secret that our editorial staff is overwhelmingly young, just as its widely known that many of those who sell ads for The Beacon are in their later years. Many employers would have dismissed us out of hand, but George saw something.

In two guys from upstate New York barely out of college, a talented freelancer from Black Jack, Mo., an old colleague from his days as a reporter from Pittsfield and a mother of two from Becket, George saw a team that believed in journalism, the public’s right to know and giving everyone a fair shake just as much as he did. George put his faith in us, and every week we try our best to make sure that the paper we produce lives up to the high standards of his dream.

Some may call The Beacon old-fashioned. After all, we’re a weekly newspaper that tries to report the facts as objectively as possible and make sure that everybody gets a chance to be heard. We believe in the public’s right to know, and we believe journalists are integral for protecting and safeguarding that right. The Beacon also believes in keeping its editorial page and news reporting separate, a situation George takes considerable effort to maintain.

An unnamed person once said of labor leader and Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, “That old man with the burning eyes actually believes that there can be such a thing as the brotherhood of man. And that’s not the funniest part of it. As long as he’s around I believe it myself.”

When George C. Jordan III says he believes in newspapers, in supporting local business, in making sure the open meeting law is followed and promoting The Berkshires as a beautiful place to visit and a wonderful place to live, he believes it with every fiber of his body. We believe it too, and as long as there is a Berkshire Beacon, those values will be defended and preserved in its pages.

Get well soon, George. We’ll be giving ’em hell until you do.

If you want to send any get-well sentiments to George, you can send them to george@berkshirebeacon.com. They will be appreciated, although George will probably tell us you should buy an ad as well.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on October 11, 2012. Filed under Editorials,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry