Dear Reader

Dear Reader,
We are in our second week back from vacation and are beginning to catch up on the news that continued to proliferate in our absence.  We have another bursting-at-the seams issue for you this week and anticipate that things will begin to slow down a little bit next week. But there ARE plenty of big stories to follow in the weeks to come including: the fiscal crisis facing the Jones Library expansion project, the resolution of the school budget and clarification of which positions (if any) will be cut in the regional school district, final funding decisions on the long-awaited repairs to the Amherst Regional High School track, community responses to the dismissal/discounting by ARHS principal Talib Sadiq of last year’s Title IX and non-Title IX reports documenting inappropriate, discriminatory behavior on the part of Amherst public schools staff, the disposition of the Wildwood School building after the new Fort River School opens in 2026, the location for a new DPW building and fire station, and the ongoing story of campus protests over the Gaza war and the intensifying assault on free speech on college campuses.   And who knows what else?  Stay tuned. 

We’ve heard from a few readers who’ve said that they have trouble finding what they are looking for in the Indy.  So here are some tips.

How to Read the Indy
The Indy is putatively a weekly news magazine and while we post content throughout the week, most new material comes in and gets posted on Thursday and Friday. On Friday night, we re-organize all of the material that came in during the week into a predictable, “news magazine” format and we email a digest of all of our articles out to our subscribers at 6 a.m. on Saturday (send us a note if you want to get on the email list at amherstindy@gmail.com). On Monday we begin to add new content again . That content appears on our web site in the order in which it is posted until Friday when the order of articles is reorganized into our predictable “news magazine” format.

So What Is That Format? 
News stories are posted at the front of the issue, followed by Local Events, Opinion, and ending with Features (e.g. Photo of the Week, or our history or nature or gardening columns, or Town Manager Report) at the back. The exceptions are “Dear Reader” (an occasional letter to readers from the Managing Editor, and our table of contents – “What’s In This Issue?” These need to be up front to provide a guide for reading the issue). Issues & Analyses pieces, which are deep and sometimes technical dives into topics of interest, may appear either in the news section or the opinion section depending on the overall thrust of the piece and usually as the lead article in those sections. Within the news section, town government and school news stories tend to appear up front and news from the campuses or news focusing on arts and culture toward the rear of the section. Our first couple of stories on our “front page”  tend to be the weightiest news stories of the week – the kinds of stories you would find above the fold in a print paper.  Within the Opinion section, copy appears in the following order: Public Comments, Letters, and Op/eds.  Op/eds that are reposted from other sources (Gazette, Bulletin, The Guardian, Yes Magazine, Portside)  tend to appear following original material that was prepared specifically for the Indy.

If you read the Indy on a laptop or tablet, you see a full-page layout but if you read us on your mobile phone you see articles one at a time.  In a typical week, we post two full pages of new content with 12 articles to the page (though last week and this week, in catching up, we have posted three pages of content).

If you read us on a phone, which about 60% of you do, you will find our table of contents – “What’s In This Issue?” especially helpful. “What’s in This Issue?” provides a listing of all of the week’s content divided by subject and with a hyperlink to take you directly to each article so you don’t have to scroll through 36 articles to find what you are looking for.  This also makes for efficient browsing of the entire issue. “What’s in This Issue?” is also where we post our readership analytics which can keep you up-to-date on how many folks are tuning in each week and which articles are receiving the most attention.

Some of you have suggested that our issues ought to be shorter/smaller  Collectively though, you don’t agree on what we ought to get rid of. So we suggest that you approach the Indy as you would any newspaper or news magazine. You’re not likely to read the whole thing cover to cover. Pick out the stories that capture your interest and check those out. (Our analytics tell us that the average reader reads 2.5 stories each time they visit our site).  And check out “What’s in This Issue?” to keep tabs on what other folks are reading.

I hope that helps.  Some folks have said that they sometimes miss important editorials because they are “buried at the back of the issue.”  Now that you have a map of the Indy, you know that nothing is buried because you know exactly where to look for whatever you seek.

Looking For Reporters
We are looking for some more folks to join our community journalism project.  We welcome new writers looking to write about all manner of issues but are especially in need of reporters to help cover the following topics: agriculture, Conservation Commission, Finance Committee, and schools.  Drop us a note at amherstindy@gmail.com if you’d like to hear more about how you can get involved.

Thanks for reading the Indy,
Art

Art Keene
Managing Editor