Four years ago, we started Macon Community News as a project to stem the tide of constant negativity in the news and the seeming lack of coverage of small local events, organizations and businesses. Not as a competitor to The Macon Telegraph or other news sources, just as something to augment what is covered by filling a small niche.
Our mission is to highlight what makes people feel good about Macon. We don’t cover the other stuff because the news that gets you down is well covered obsessively. Murders, armed robberies, child abuse and all the other things that play to our fears and anger can be read about all day long with an online subscription to Macon.com.
Our idea is to create a venue for people of the community to share stories that are inspirational, informative and help people see the good things about Macon and Middle Georgia. We want stories generated by those who want to highlight the good things that happen in the area, the small businesses with wonderful customer service or how to get involved in local organizations and volunteer opportunities.
Macon Community News has a small regular staff. A very small regular staff. There are limits to what we can cover alone, but we are very open to submissions from the community. That’s why we are named as we are; community sourcing is a big part of who we are.
To that end, we are a bit casual, often writing in narrative fashion instead of a third person journalistic style, but that is also part of our niche. We want our stories to be more like friends telling each other about a new store or their experience volunteering with a local charity. We want our writers as well as our readers to feel personally connected to the stories we publish.
If you like our idea and want to help, there are many ways you can. One way is to thank or consider shopping at the businesses who have helped us pay for the printing and distributing the paper. Their ads are invaluable and they are there because they too believe in our mission.
Another way to help is to tell your own story and submit an article describing something you do in Middle Georgia, a place you go or just how to get involved in a local organization. One of the other reasons I started this paper was because I wanted to volunteer for something but had no idea about what was available. Small organizations that cannot pay for ads in the big local paper do not get much coverage and unfortunately when they do, they are buried under the stories about human failings, greed and disappointments.
A third way that you can help is to share the stories we publish by sharing this paper or by sharing stories from our web site or
online social media such Facebook. We publish all of our print stories there as well as additional content.
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