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If you subscribe to the Maitland Mercury in the NSW Hunter region - apologies, you will have read this.
By way of explanation, the masthead's editor Rick Allen, takes people behind his desk in his weekly newsletter. He shares with them a little slice of his professional life - the good, the bad, the challenging.
This week, without spelling it out, Rick shared an insight into the partnerships that exist between a community and its local newspaper. Here's what he wrote:
Local artist Helen Hopcroft was on the phone last week looking to promote her latest project, The Very Small French Festival.
It's a boutique weekly festival that's a nod to all things French, and it's on every Friday afternoon in The Levee during October.
"Can we get a good pic to go with the story?" I asked.
"Of course," Helen said.
The reason I mention this is that in all my years of journalism - okay, more than 40 if you must know - I've never come across a person who's a better subject for our photographers.
Rick asks Maitland Mercury readers if they could remember the picture above on the front page a few weeks back?
That's her, in a bathtub, in the middle of High Street dodging the traffic (it's a long story). I still don't know how they managed it or how she agreed to it, but it's a fabulous image all the same.
On the basis of the picture below, I shouldn't have been surprised though.
That's when she dressed as Marie Antoinette every day for 12 months to raise awareness of the arts in Maitland.
As the temperatures had soared over summer, we'd mentioned in the news conference how hot she must have been. We contacted her about it and she agreed to jump into the pool for us to cool off - ice block in hand, no less.
So, by those standards, The Very Small French Festival image - with a few friends and a few props - was fairly mundane. But it was another lovely picture to illustrate the story all the same.
So, on effort alone we'd encourage people to get along to the Friday festivals this month in The Levee - think music, food, short films, French bubbles, books and loads more - and give it plenty of local support.
These sort of events make the city a more vibrant place to live - and in COVID times, a chance to get out and feel good about things for a while.
Oh, and if anyone wants to challenge Helen as our top photographic subject, feel free ... but the bar has been set high. Our photographers will love you for it all the same."
See, we are all in this together.
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