This time of the year always makes me think of hope.
Not only because I considered myself a nerd and enjoyed the new Star Wars movie (if you’re looking for a redneck Casanova, Felicity Jones, let me know), but I always have the hope that peace can happen, the hope that everybody can get along, the hope my car can sputter along another day, the hope Dr. Enuf bottles can be endless — it seems to never happen, but that hope never goes away.
Roughly seven months ago, I took a huge leap of faith by leaving my post with a community newspaper to join the STAR. So many friendships forged through hundreds of hours of sports coverage, city hall and BMA meetings … it’s hard to leave a place that took up one-fifth of your life.
But I had hope.
Before I started in the journalism profession, my grandfather, who was my biggest role model and pushed me to become the first ever man in my family to even attend college, passed away. It was a rough time and the amount of nights just thinking I’ll never be able to talk to pappaw and talk about things and hear what he has to say, it never gets easier. I didn’t know what to do.
But I had hope.
Hope is one thing you need when you decide to check that mental box and pursue a profession in journalism. In this day and age, social media clogs up traffic online. Just about half the stories you read online now are either true, or you get sent to a site full of advertisements with about two paragraphs of misinformation. You don’t know what you’re getting into when you cover an event. You don’t know if you’ll be welcomed or hated.
But boy is it fun.
One of the most interesting statements I’ve heard in passing before is that young people don’t read the paper anymore.
I think had I not been in Unicoi County, it could be a believable statement. Social media and websites have created a popular stigma that newspapers are either on the way of being dead, or already there.
But during my time at the Erwin Record, we actually had students at Unicoi County High School stop by our office on Gay Street to purchase newspapers to see reports on either school news they were part of or the sports coverage.
You read that correctly: Teenagers. Actually. Buying. Newspapers. And that is a trait that is continuing here in Carter County. Heck, I’m 25 years old and I can’t count the amount of times I’ve spoken with people near my age about stuff that has happened in the region — that they READ IN THE NEWSPAPER.
So when I hear papers are dead or nobody ever reads a print edition — all that needs to be done is look at the supporters of the STAR.
One of the traits I picked up from my former sports editor, Anthony Piercy, was that the community paper is something that won’t go away, unless you make an effort to do away with it from the inside.
That’s the angle we’ve been able to take at the STAR — hyper local.
The newspaper wants to be your shining star (it’s Christmas time, gotta have a fair share of cliches in a column) of continuing coverage of city and county meetings, along with providing the faces of the community and providing the moments and stories that will be keepsakes for the years to come. To sprinkle on top of that, utilize the national stories and condense it down to a more local/region aspect.
Newspapers that “survive this age of technology” do it with hard work, dedication and, you guessed it, hope.
With the weekend around the bend,  the STAR staff wants to wish the readers a safe and joyous Christmas. And to coincide this with the new year, I want to personally thank the readers, officials, coaches and other members of the community that have helped the continued success of the STAR. Do we know what the future holds? Nope. Is it exciting? Of course.
Want to know why?
Because I have hope.
– Cue Star Wars’ theme music –
(Curtis is a TPA award-winning journalist and a reporter/photographer for the STAR. To contact him, email curtis.carden@elizabethton.com or call (423) 297-9057)