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The Hartford News...An Old Friend
by Mike McGarry
It seems that the lure of a small, down-home newspaper has wafted around The Hartford News for all these twenty years, attracting both up-and-coming Trinity students and Ashley Street hacks.
Setting myself solidly in the latter, I remember the days of the Hill Ink, development of the art of Billy Dougal, and the splashiness of Steve Walsh. Running for Mayor (as a sacrificial lamb) in both 1979 and 1981, the main media open to my musings was this paper, dedicated, seemingly, to giving a man enough rope. . .
In these correctly, neo-conservative days in Hartford, it's refreshing to go back to the old issues. The "Carbonistas", the "Ludpublicans", blasts against the downtown establishment and the proponents of the surcharge all got full voice in a paper seemingly open to all and any.
Everything in print hangs around forever, laying about waiting to bite you back.
For me, a gloomy conservative, most of my dire predictions in the 1980's of the consequences of liberal overspending by leftist city councils don't haunt too badly. Some of my early photos, however-Amish beard, Barry Goldwater glasses, may be best left in the family album for Shawn, my grandson, to giggle (or wonder) about.
It has always been a bit of a struggle for all of my friends at the paper-ad agencies hire the young and foolish who don't understand how to deal with unaudited complimentary newspapers. But the lack of big-time cash does have a flip side, offering opportunities to writers like Cyndi Brown Austin, Jane Dee and Ethel Austin, and editors like Bill Doak who have moved onto a measure of glory (Ethel still does double duty for the News and the Courant.
If I have a wish for the paper, it would be for the means to allow the paper to follow The Courant, and even The New York Times, into more use of color. It sells.
Also, in this age of instant coffee, soup, and sex, letters to the editor seem few and far between.
Remember, a good letter can lead to a feature, or column, or even a book...your author dreams on.
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