The Great Unwashed...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | How goes it at The McAllen Sun, you may be driven to ask. Ask, but, well, you really never ask. That's the Rio Grande Valley readership - a sedated, quite comfortable collection of yappers and clappers but few, few writers. Vocal critics at every streetcorner; writers nowhere to be found.

And when they write, like when they type-in a comment to this Blog - again, it is hardly heady stuff. Never are we pleasantly surprised, or even left to wonder. Walden Pond is not here, nor is Woody Creek.

You grow disillusioned, yet you can't help but remain steadfast.

It is your writing that has to shine on. To bother with wishing for a Big City (Boston, NYC, LA) readership is to bother for nothing. The local newspapers are mediocre. There is plenty of "community" news that has to be pasted to the pages. Hardly a gripping story in the offering. The writing is woefully uninspiring and actually sleep-friendly.

I remember my job interview at The Boston Globe, when a senior editor told me the renowned newspaper was a "writer's newspaper," that it served a readership that included 42 local colleges and universities. And in New York, I was told that the City That Never Sleeps would throw such great material at me that it would be impossible to write a bad or boring story.

True that, yes.

Everyone who has worked for newspapers any length of time will tell you that much of what fills the news pages is stuff of the sort that's been covered before. "Yes," my editor at The Associated Press in Denver threw out, "...But it's all in how you write it."

I should say about here that writing was to be the forte of this blog.

Yes, the subjects would be locals, some politicians and at some point also include state and national figures, disasters or, yeah, the weather ("hot" being the news angle on that these days). Has it worked out that way? I say it has. Some days I like the material I post here and some days I don't. Pleasing a writer is never possible. Don't tell him what to write, don't tell him you have a book in you, don't tell him you heard this rumor.

Things eventually shake out in the day-to-day wash.

I love to give our area politicians the Big Time treatment. Writing about them based on a standard of politics not often exhibited here. Should I be easy on them just because they recently moved here from neighboring Mexico, or because, well, they're humble candidates not used to the Klieg lights of the press? I say no.

A congressman from here is the equal of a congressman whose district is in Dallas, Chicago, Miami or Los Angeles. At least in theory, right? Yes, some candidates from elsewhere are better-dressed, better-spoken and better-educated.

But they are still Congressman Joe or Congresswoman Jane, as is our guy and gal down here.

Where we go from here with this blog is the one question swimming in my head. I expect certain results, maybe a little feedback. Gauging our entry into the Rio Grande Valley's blogosphere is a crapshoot. The number of visitors to the site tell you one thing, but that is just one of the equation's elements. There has to be a bit more to it than simply writing something every day.

We value presentation. Our posts will be accompanied by photos of the subjects or topics we write about, and they will be offered in a manner pleasing to the eye. There will be little stand-alone, copy & paste jobs here.

One Brownsville blog has captured the monopoly on that. We'd name it (and should!), but the fellow who operates it likely has his reasons, and who are we to say he's wrong? He may just be tired.

So, bear with us if you're along for this ride.

We'll strive to bring something interesting, at the very least. I just wish this part of the state and States would enjoy the written word much more than it does. I don't believe the region's residents are readers. I suspect (rightfully) that someone could publish a magazine the equal of The New Yorker here and fail, fail quickly, as few would care.

Our title for this post - The Great Unwashed - refers to ordinary, common people. People who do not have a lot of money, power or social status.

This is where I've landed. This is who I write for, for now...

-30-