Cornwall vs. Sharon: Chester's impact on journalism

The business of gathering and reporting the news never ceases to amaze even those who have been doing it for many years. It seems that often when this newspaper publishes an especially controversial news article or editorial, we brace ourselves for the strong reaction that is sure to come. Too often — and much to our surprise — there is little response. Then when we least expect it, readers will seize on a seemingly innocuous story and engage in a feisty dialogue on this page.
  
 Take the case of Chester, the guinea hen living near the Xtramart in Sharon, who was befriended by scores of nearby residents before meeting his untimely death at the hands of a speeding car last month. As the abundance of carcasses strewn about our roads attests, an animal getting run over isn’t unusual in our neck of the woods. Nor, for that matter, is a speeding car.
 
   But the sad saga of dear Chester hit a nerve with some of our readers — so much so, in fact, that there are bruised feelings among some of the letter writers who duked it out on this page. And after more than a century of covering the goings-on in Sharon and Cornwall, The Lakeville Journal never realized there was a significant rivalry between those two fine towns. It just goes to show that even after 110 years of continuous publication, a weekly newspaper still has lots to learn about its own readers.
   
The exchange among our readers also serves to illustrate two major points. First, it seems that only in a community newspaper would one witness such an exchange. One community, grief stricken by the loss of a feathered friend, versus a satirical observer from a nearby town with a somewhat different culture. Second, on a more global level, the exchange of views also exposed a philosophical schism between different types of animal aficionados: those who love and care for them and those who feel the best way to honor animals is to simply leave them alone.
   
This newspaper also took it on the chin from one letter writer who thought we “showed exceedingly poor taste in choosing to run this story, with its cutesy headline,� on the obituary page. “Why don’t you cover all the roadkill deaths in the Northwest Corner in this manner?� she wondered.
  
 The answer to that question is simple: Unlike a flattened squirrel or a squashed possum, this roadkill death struck a chord with our readers because of its human dimension. Just ask the teary-eyed children who after the bird’s death retrieved a handful of feathers from the scene, bringing them to the office of the nearby attorney who had befriended Chester. Ask the townspeople who fed food scraps to Chester and had grown fond of him (her?).
  
 The Lakeville Journal will continue to report energetically on the stories that matter to our readers. Whether it be a municipal meeting, a tireless volunteer, a high school football game or a visit by an eagle to Lake Wononscopomuc, we hope to be here doing what we love for another 110 years.

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