AYLMER, QUEBEC | Why isn't it bigger? Why doesn't it have more from my area? These are the two most common questions we hear about the West Quebec Post. We also hear complaints that the Post doesn't arrive on time, or that it regularly ignores some events.

We do get compliments. We take them all, compliments, questions, and complaints. We wish we heard more back on every edition, as do all newspaper people. We aren't beaming our message out to faceless hordes somewhere in the universe, but to specific people in a well-defined area, our West Quebec. The more we understand the interests of our readers, and the better our results will be.

We hear a lot about our columnists.

One gentleman, a busy real estate agent, has mentioned several times how he enjoys reading "Wild Tracks" by Robin Stone. "It's like going for a walk with her, in the woods or on the edge of a field," he said just after Christmas. "It's as close as I get to the wild, these days." Since he's said that, I feel a little more of the wild myself as I read Robin's column, and I read it slower.

Another column that brings comment is our cooking column, "The Cook on Cook."

I would never have expected a cooking column to be so interesting and funny for an ordinary guy. Readers have said Lakshmi's sense of humour, self-deprecation, wisdom, confidentiality and sensuality come through to the point they wish her columns were longer. Reading her every week keeps our appetites stimulated, and this can only brighten our attitude towards being alive.

Country music fans tell me they enjoy Victor Lauren's "Country Tracks." If all this sounds better than winning awards at the summer newspaper convention, it is. Our columnists do well with the awards. Last year cartoonist Ruby Ewen took first place for the best cartoon in Quebec.

Our readers' critical remarks are as valuable as compliments, even if many complaints concern things we can't help. We're not a big enough business to have a reporter in every town, paid to fill a page or two from that town. We can't afford to pay the salaries to research out particularly complex stories.

And should we?

There already are several very good local papers in West Quebec. Should we be reporting what they're reporting -- and why would most of our readers care about the details and the social events of other towns? What we don't have in our region is media that covers the whole region as an entity within which we all live. Columns are a part of this generalized picture.

The two columns we hear the most about are David Suzuki's and Gwynne Dyer, both Canadians but not local. Most readers seem pleased that at least one newspaper in West Quebec and the national capital region is carrying them both.

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Copyright © 2008 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/03.08