By Michael Balter, Editor/Publisher
“Le pouvoir du journaliste ne se fonde pas sur le droit de poser une question, mais sur celui d’exiger une réponse.” — Milan Kundera
(“The power of the journalist is not based on the right to pose a question, but on the right to insist on an answer.”)
Introduction: Happy birthday to the Chronicle.
Today is the two year anniversary of The Croton Chronicle. Or is it? It all depends on when you start counting. On October 23, 2023, we announced a new media outlet in the village, in a post entitled “Welcome to The Croton Chronicle.” It led off with a pretty nice photo of Croton Point, taken by yours truly, the editor and publisher.
This first post gave a short explanation of why I thought Croton needed a new publication, which at the time might not have been obvious to everyone (and still might not be clear to absolutely everyone, although the number of doubters has diminished considerably over the past two years.)
Here is part of what I said:
…I think The Gazette and its editor, Gary Cahill, do a very good job of covering the basic news in Croton and several surrounding communities. So this newsletter is not intended to compete with that esteemed newspaper. On the other hand, The Gazette has certain limitations: For one thing, it is not online, and there are no signs that it will be online anytime soon. That means the articles are necessarily short, and there is little room for longer features, profiles, or—what The Croton Chronicle will offer as part of its overall package—investigative reporting into village politics, culture, and economic affairs.
I think this is still true. The Gazette does many things the Chronicle does not and probably will not be doing any time soon, if ever, including excellent sports and music coverage, and obituaries. Where there is some obvious overlap is between our Guest Editorials and the Gazette’s Letters to the Editor. Lately, many contributors have started publishing their opinions in both places, which has the salutary effect of increasing their readership. So that is all to the good: The Chronicle and The Gazette overlap in areas where it makes the most sense.
This is one reason why I count the actual publication of the Chronicle from October 29, 2023. On that day, we published our first actual piece of reporting, an article entitled “Finkelstein tire site sold to major developer of multi-family housing.” The rest, as they say, is history. The Chronicle, with its very first story, began to show that it would have an important impact in the village and provide information that residents needed to know. That would be the first of many, many reports about local housing issues, in which we broke stories that otherwise might have remained hidden.
So you could say that the Chronicle cut its teeth on the housing issue, a subject we continue to follow closely.
Gary Eisinger, who is running for mayor in the current village elections on the Voice of Croton ticket, has said publicly that were it not for the housing stories in the Chronicle—including most importantly these first ones about the Finkelstein site—there would be no Voice of Croton and no contested election this year. Mayor Pugh, and many others, have said that contested elections are good for the political, social, and economic health of our community.
Do they mean that sincerely? It doesn’t really matter. Contested elections are back in Croton-on-Hudson, after a long hiatus.
Over the past two years, the Chronicle’s coverage of a wide range of controversial topics—housing, crime stories, civil cases, contention in the school district, and most recently, campaign ethics—have made it popular with some and unpopular with others. But the publication is not running a popularity contest. It is an online newspaper, doing what media outlets are supposed to do. I often talk to people in Croton who say that while they do not agree with everything the Chronicle publishes, they agree with the need for it, and are glad that it exists.
That’s all we can ask for. And it no doubt explains why the Chronicle’s subscriber rolls just keep on growing, at the rate of several dozen more each month. As for volume of stories, the one you are reading now is the 636th post in just two years. We’ve been plenty busy all this time.
Nevertheless, there are some here who have done their best to try to discredit and even suppress this publication. The Chronicle is banned on at least three important village Facebook groups—in one case, via explicit edict of the administrators—and it’s not only I who cannot post links to it, but anyone on those groups.
Why? My own theory is that there are some in Croton who think the village should be a journalism free zone, exempt from the normal delving into community affairs that the press is supposed to carry out. A corollary to this is the conviction that certain viewpoints should be suppressed, or the holders of those views should just shut up.
But those who see things that way are in the minority, and they lost the argument long ago. The continued success of the Chronicle is the proof.
So despite blatant censorship on some village social media groups, and continual attacks by a small posse of folks who think they are the arbiters of what we should and should not be told, the Chronicle has sharply and steadily grown in reader numbers. As I write, we have 1,371 direct email subscribers, and many stories attract more readers than that. We have published a few posts that topped 5,000 readers in a short period of time. And those readers represent the wide range of opinions in Croton, from far left all the way over to the far right, and everything in between.
Of those subscribers, about 24% pay for their subscriptions. That is very high for a Substack newsletter that does not require readers to pay for most of its content (at the moment, Croton Week in Review is the only feature behind the paywall.) The subscription renewal rate, another sign of the health of a media outlet, is higher than 90%, which those in the industry can tell you is pretty impressive.
But it’s not good enough, as I will discuss at the bottom of this post.
What I want to stress here is that the Chronicle has adopted a business model that guarantees its independence: No ads, no underwriters, no hidden sources of funds, nothing that would compromise the publication’s ability to tell the truth as we find it and see it. We are not part of any political group, social clique, or other tribal formation, of which—for better or worse—there are a significant number in Croton, as in any small community.
This independence has also allowed us to give voice to a wide range of viewpoints, as reflected in our Guest Editorials, but also in our news and feature coverage. We have never turned down a Guest Editorial because of its political slant, and we never would; the only thing we ask is that opinion pieces be based to at least some extent on facts, and so we have rejected a few fact-free rants that do not follow that principle.
It is also not true, despite the claims of some, that the Chronicle is a one-man show (that man allegedly being me.) Not only do the many Guest Editorials illustrate that, but behind the scenes of our news and feature coverage are dozens of villagers who daily provide source material, advice, research, and other help, even if most of them remain anonymous to avoid the kinds of personal attacks and retaliation that occur all too often here. As the editor and publisher, it is my job to take the heat. It is not always fun, but it is necessary, and I have made the choice to do it.
You can see my qualifications to do this job at the bottom of this post. Suffice to say for now that the Chronicle has never had to retract an article because we got the central facts wrong. While some may not agree with the slant of some stories or think they are biased—or think that a particular story should not have been published in the first place—no one has ever approached us to ask for more than very minor corrections. If a story is wrong, we want to hear about it.
Lastly, I want to stress that the Chronicle is not a “blog,” as a few in the village try to claim. Not that there is anything wrong with bloggers or blogging: They have often broken important stories, and they have served a critical role drawing attention to facts and issues that the mainstream media often misses or ignores, sometimes deliberately.
But calling this essential news source, read by so many in the village, a “blog” is just wishful thinking on the part of some who hope in vain that it will go away. The Chronicle is an online newspaper, doing all the things a newspaper does, and using the Substack platform to publish—part of a rapidly growing transition in American media as traditional news sources, especially at the local level, dry up and die (or get bought up by investors who do not care about serving the community, only making money.)
In the next section, more about why the Chronicle is such an essential part of our community. But first, a group photo of some of the local leaders in Croton who take the Chronicle seriously:
These civic leaders have all written Guest Editorials for the Chronicle:
The many things you would not know if you didn’t read the Chronicle.
Let’s go in more or less reverse chronological order and highlight some recent major stories. More “minor” stories are legion.
— You would not know that the Croton-Harmon school district is being sued by a former high school student and his father for a wrestling injury the student sustained.
— You would not know why there was originally no League of Women Voters Candidate Forum between Emiljana Ulaj and Laurie Ryan, and now there is.
— You would not know that Croton’s Code Enforcement Officer wrote a whistleblower letter contending that he was pressured into issuing a code violation against Lenny Amicola.
— You would not know that a tenant at Bari Manor is still homeless after the fire there earlier this year.
— You would not know that a village resident has pled guilty to charges of possession of child pornography and is awaiting sentencing on those charges.
These are just some recent stories. Going back over the past two years, you would have known little or nothing about the year-long fight of low-paid school workers for a decent contract; you would not know what the alternative proposals were for Maple Commons and Lot A in response to the village’s Request for Proposals; you would not know that village officials discussed the prospective plans for the Finkelstein property with a representative of that family for nearly two years behind closed doors; you would not be able to read in-depth interviews with the six candidates for village offices; and so much more.
All of these reports were published first in the Chronicle, and many or most of them remain exclusive Chronicle stories.
Don’t take the Chronicle for granted. Support local journalism by taking out a paid sub.
I hope that what you have read above underscores the importance of local journalism in a community like ours, and the importance of keeping it going, even if you do not agree with everything you read here. I think it is fair to say that The Croton Chronicle has done an essential job of keeping the community informed. There is a huge amount of information residents would not now possess were it not for their good luck in having a serious journalistic enterprise right in their midst.
I don’t want to go into detail about this here and now, but the continued publication of the Chronicle is not guaranteed. How could it be? There are choices to be made: You, the reader, choose whether or not to read this online newspaper, and whether to support this journalistic effort financially. I, the editor/publisher, choose whether or not it is worth the considerable time and effort to keep it going.
For the time being, I have made my choice. Now, if you have not already, it is time to make yours, with thanks. If you are not a paying subscriber, the second anniversary of the Chronicle is a good time to become one. Do it for yourself, and for our community. Click on this link, and make your contribution to keeping Croton well informed.
Michael Balter has been a working journalist for 47 years. He began his career as a local reporter in Los Angeles, and then moved to France where he was the Paris Correspondent for Science magazine for 25 years. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, Discover, Scientific American, Audubon, Bon Appetit, Islands, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic, and dozens of other publications. He taught journalism at New York University (six years) as well as at Boston University and City College of New York (one year each.)
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Congratulations. Long live independent, investigative journalism.
Happy 2nd Birthday Michael and thank you for bringing us the Chronicle! Best wishes in the coming years