A farewell to our readers

After 25 years working at The News, this is my final week.

It’s been a busy week celebrating the end of a quarter of a century with my colleagues — lunches, afternoon teas and lots of lovely words said.

However, there’s another group of people who have been just as important during those years — you, our readers and the Greater Shepparton community.

I started at The News on the front desk, greeting visitors to our office. Back in 2001, it was a busy, interactive place to work and gave me the opportunity to meet so many of you.

In those days, classified ads were mostly placed in person. There were engagement and wedding notices, newborn announcements, and The News was one of the best places to sell something you no longer wanted.

Buying a professional photograph taken by one of our talented photographers was also popular. Whether it was a photo of your children, yourself or other family members, people would regularly come into the office to order a copy.

And people would wander in with story tips or something they thought we should know about.

How things have changed.

I didn’t work on the front desk for long, but I loved it. It was my first opportunity to really interact with our readers and understand the important place The News held in the community.

In between stints in marketing and circulation, I spent most of my years in some way connected to the newsroom.

For a reporter, editor or photographer, a newsroom can be a magical and lively place. It’s a hive of activity, filled with conversations about what is happening in our community that day. There’s hard work, plenty of collaboration and lots of humour.

But at the heart of it is a team of people who genuinely care about this community and want to serve their readers to the best of their ability.

Working for The News has given me an extraordinary window into Greater Shepparton. You see people on their best days and sometimes on their toughest.

We have celebrated your achievements and told your stories. And we know there have been times when we have written things some people would rather we didn’t.

Those stories are never written lightly. Sometimes journalism means asking difficult questions or reporting things that are uncomfortable because we believe they are important and our community deserves to be informed.

Over the years, people have trusted The News with deeply personal stories — stories of grief, illness, triumph, injustice, generosity and resilience. That trust is something I have never taken lightly.

I have also learnt that everyone has a story, and often the best ones aren’t found in a media release or at a press conference.

They come from a phone call, a conversation in the street, someone dropping into the office or a reader saying, “You should look into this.”

And quite often, you were right.

The media industry I am leaving looks very different from the one I joined 25 years ago. I have watched us move from a newspaper-first world to one where news happens instantly, readers communicate with us in real time through social media and email, and our stories can travel well beyond Shepparton within minutes.

But one thing hasn’t changed: local stories matter.

They matter because they are your stories. They are about the people, places, decisions and events that shape the community we call home.

And I know the newsroom teams of the future will continue telling those stories and documenting Greater Shepparton’s history for many years to come.

To our News subscribers, thank you for your loyalty. Thank you for believing, as passionately as I do, that having a strong local news service matters.

And to everyone who has picked up the phone with a story tip, sent an email, stopped me for a chat, trusted us with something deeply personal, praised us when we got it right or told us when you thought we got it wrong — thank you.

You have made the past 25 years interesting, challenging, rewarding and, most importantly, never boring.

It has been an enormous privilege to help tell the stories of this community.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of yours.

Christine Anderson

Former Shepparton News editor