An announcement about "Then & Now"

October 1, 2023

An important announcement has to be made about the "Granville Then and Now" column. The column was discontinued last month, entirely by my choice.

For the past few years, I have written various history articles and columns for the Granville Sentinel. From April 2019 to April 2020, I wrote several articles that appeared from time to time. These were of a primarily historical nature. During this time I offered to write a weekly column, but was turned down for various reasons.

This would be overcome in July 2020, when the "Granville Then and Now" column made its debut. From the start, I set out with the plan of writing a column much like that of Morris Rote-Rosen's "Main Street" column of over 40 years prior. As a result, the column featured historical topics, current events, commentary, and occasionally quotes on the street.

Around the end of the year I had a consistent set of features to write. In December I wrote of Christmas greetings from Granville businesses of yesteryear. I also wrote the yearly business review, which had an accurate run-through of the business changes which had occurred in Granville throughout the year, and supplanted the sometimes inaccurate summary done by the reporters in their "year in review" feature spread.

In the new year, I ran through the "feel good" events that occurred in the previous year, and eventually, ran through interesting topics that I wrote about in the column in the previous year.

In the column's three year run, I only ran a single series - the three part history of Granville's Masonic lodge in the issues from July 22 to August 5, 2021. There were several others planned, but these did not come to fruition. The closest to publication of the series in planning were those about the Memorial Chime Clock, and another on local option and Prohibition.

For much of the column's time in 2023, I wrote the column more or less like it was a "Granville - A Century Ago" column. This was due to factors necessitating such a shift, including from within the paper itself. Editorial influence attempted to discourage me from writing about businesses as current event sections. There was also the occasional tampering with articles, such as the March 23, 2023 column where a section had quotes and were removed before publication. Friction on the current events led to finding the path of least resistance, resulting in "Granville Then and Now" having lots of "then" and little "now" in 2023.

Another situation is the major changes at the Granville Sentinel in the years since I started writing, which also corresponds roughly to the years since the paper was sold out of the Manchester family. John may not have been perfect, and had his share of dislike and condemnation, but he did know how to run a small town community newspaper that actually focused on the Granville area.

The new owners attempted improvements early on, and some actually seemed to make some headway, but by 2022 the papers were being run in the old style of the new owners, not an entirely new style altogether. In those intervening years the Sentinel has seen less and less local advertisers, with only five or so in a count from last month. There is very little local news. At the same time, they have attempted to change their focus to be about the central and southern portions of Washington County - basically Granville and everything south - despite not being sold there, and that area already being served by two newspapers (The Eagle and The Greenwich Journal-Press).

Being the only locally based writer in all the Sentinel by the column's start, I received scads of criticism over the years about the Sentinel - not for "Granville Then and Now" but about the other things. I sent some points their way, but others were withheld for there was no point in attempting to change the direction their hearts were set on.

By this summer (2023), I realized that my continued writing of "Granville Then and Now" was an implicit gesture tantamount to supporting the direction the new owners are taking the Granville Sentinel. From these factors, of hearing increased complaints, and seeing few and far between local advertisers, and knowing I couldn't write the column I had been writing two years earlier with a proper balance of history and current events, and realizing the Sentinel is in decline, I made the decision to discontinue writing the column. I considered wrapping up the column with reflections and predictions and other things, but realized that attempts would be made to change my mind if the discontinuation was figured out in advance.

I decided the week of September 7 to end the column and any other feature I was writing at the time. Nothing was submitted for the week of September 14, and the receiver of column submissions was notified.

I thank everyone who supported the Granville Then and Now column and gave a good word for it during its three year run.

I am contemplating plans for more writing, but for now, this blog website will get more use.

Erik Pekar