Jim and I returned to Eastport for the sixth time since 2013. Along the way, others in the media came with us: Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal, recording for his series on Our Towns, and Jeanne Jordan and Steve Ascher, the filmmakers of the HBO Our Towns documentary, who captured the stunning beauty of the Bay of Fundy and the tough and gritty comportment of the residents. Eastport has a long list of big fans, including all of us.
This time, we came to the Eastport Arts Center to talk with David Dahl, editor of the non-profit news organization, the Maine Monitor, about some of the changes we had seen in small towns over the last decade. What were some secrets of their successes or declines? How had the pandemic shaken up small towns? Why has public perception changed from the previous ho-hum attitude to rural and small town America shifted, to the now-conventional wisdom that they are important and interesting?
We also talked about the crisis of local journalism, and some of the creative answers to that crisis, like the Maine Monitor’s model of a citizen-supported, in-depth, non-partisan reporting. And Eastport’s robust Quoddy Tides, now run by the second generation of the French family, which has not only survived but thrived for nearly 55 years, and prints a hefty paper about local and regional issues every other week. We have a subscription to the paper, which we fight over as soon as it arrives in the mail to DC.
We talked for an hour, and could have stayed for several more. A good 10 % of Eastport’s population showed up with questions.
Here is the YouTube recording:
