Good morning, readers, and welcome to 2021 when clearly people at the grassroots will need to more fully take charge of their future.
There’s a model for doing this that is gaining traction around the world. It’s called participatory democracy and it is becoming a must in a world where failing rulers are causing pain and loss on an epic scale.
For the Alice Springs News, in our 26th year of publication and now the only local newspaper in town, we will be called to:–
• Keep our ear to the ground, detecting ideas, demands, praise, condemnation.
• Put those before our wide readership (usually around 22,000 individuals a month).
• Track the take-up by Government and Opposition Members of Parliament – are they listening to their constituents?
• Chronicle the actions elected members are taking.
• Report public response to this political action or inaction.
• As always, use the plethora of media handouts from politicians’ minders as a guide but insist on direct contact with the sources for our journalism.
And of course we will continue to tell the evolving story of this community, its social and cultural life.
An inestimable element of our newspaper is the feed-back from you, 24,869 comments from readers since August 6, 2011, and the outstanding work from our contributors – including Mike Gillam, Geoff Miers, Fiona Walsh, Alex Nelson, Rainer Chlanda, John P McD Smith, Pip McManus, Ralph Folds.
Their writing is part of our fully searchable archive of some seven million words of responsible, professional journalism.
Our job for 2021 is cut out. We’re looking forward to it.
Happy New Year!
Erwin Chlanda, Editor
Kieran Finnane, Senior Writer
PHOTO: Heritage Alice Springs
Last updated Wednesday 6 January 2021, 10.07am (‘participatory democracy’ link added).