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A not-so-subtle reminder that local journalism is hard work and needs your help.
Earlier this week, we published a post entitled “Everything you wanted to know about housing development in Croton and had the courage to ask. A hyperlinked bibliography.” As a free subscriber you get the Chronicle in your email inbox, so you will certainly know that there is a big debate going on in Croton about the future of the village. Whatever your position on the issues, we know that you want to keep well informed. For the past nine months, we have been working hard to help you do that, publishing many stories that have appeared nowhere else.
You also know that the Croton-Harmon school district has been sued by a conservative group called Parents Defending Education (PDE), which wants to block enforcement of all of the district’s anti-harassment, anti-bullying, anti-racist, and DEI policies. While a federal judge dismissed that lawsuit recently, she did so “without prejudice”—in other words, at any time the plaintiffs can amend the lawsuit to fill the requirements for it to be back on the docket. Meanwhile they are appealing the dismissal. The Chronicle has kept close tabs on this case, reporting how it fits into a larger national strategy by PDE to get the issues before the U.S. Supreme Court.
These are just two of the many major issues facing Croton that we cover several times each week. In between the serious stuff, we publish our Monday morning Photo Corner, profiles of interesting Croton people, occasional travel pieces (but ones that are relevant to Crotonites), and a wide variety of other stories.
The majority of these articles are free. We estimate that overall, only about one in four is behind a paywall. Those tend to be stories that require intense journalistic investigation, or that need careful, watchful attention to new developments (the stories about housing and the PDE lawsuit fit into those categories.)
We know you don’t want to be asked for money, and we don’t like asking you. That’s why we do our best to make as many posts as possible free of charge. But they can’t all be. And frankly, the Chronicle cannot survive without a healthy mix of both free and paid subscribers. In nine short months, the Chronicle has become a major information source for Croton-on-Hudson. Most of our stories are read by between 1000 and 2000 people or more, and, as I think most here realize, they have increasing impact.
We are not asking you to pay for some amateur vanity project. The editor of the Chronicle is a journalist with 46 years of experience, who has written for hundreds of major U.S. publications over his long career, and taught journalism at the graduate and undergraduate level at Boston University, New York University, and the City College of New York.
We think we are giving you a lot, and the fact that you continue to subscribe tells us you might agree. Now we are asking that you help keep this vital and relevant local journalistic effort alive by taking out a paid subscription. You can do it for $5/month, or $50/year. You can cancel at any time and get a pro-rated refund on a yearly sub.
Just click here. Please do it now.
Thank you.