Our Holliston Reporter Journey

In 2018, following one of Bobby Blair’s online pleas, Chris began writing for the Holliston Reporter, meeting weekly with Bob and the HR skeleton crew at Bobby’s house conveniently in our Mudville neighborhood. Lack of journalism experience was not a problem.  At the time, being a warm body passed the less-than-rigorous criteria for this news outlet.  But within weeks, Bobby’s illness precipitated his quick exit as the sole publisher of the Reporter.  Chris relayed the situation to me, and we considered the “news vacuum” that would follow the Reporter’s demise. Together, we decided to give it a go.

The first days and weeks were packed with creating our mission statement and introducing ourselves to the community we had lived in for all of 2 years.  This would be the perfect way, we thought, to educate ourselves about what made Holliston tick.  Our home state of Connecticut did not have Town Meetings, a Town Administrator, or a Select Board.  First on our list was the creation of Civics Sunday, a weekly column that introduced many of the Boards and Committees to residents who were, we confess, much more knowledgeable than we.  The two of us split up meetings, reporting on several.  We quickly found that publishing a “daily” created pressure to seek and collect news from all corners of the town, all the while learning the publishing and business aspects. Paul Saulnier’s phrase, “you have to feed the beast everyday” became our mantra.

We were thankful when Bobby rejoined us as a contributor, only just recovered from his surgery.  Much of our content was due to groups in town who needed a method to broadcast their events and activities.  Chris and I were busy every weekend walking (sometimes driving) to events, with our notebooks and camera.  The Holliston Fire and Police Departments were loyal contributors with reports and statistics on their news. Our intern, Matt Ristaino, covered the Select Board meetings, and we covered the rest. Lucky for us, the moniker Holliston Reporter was known to the majority of residents (although some still think we’re related to the printed Holliston Town Pages).

Learning the news business and the existing HollistonReporter.com website administration became a little less frenetic – until…  The company that hosted the original website notified us that it would no longer host that form of website—as of October 2019.  We received this news in Sept 2019.  Just one month to create a new website that would be connected using the same URL and wouldn’t look / work too differently from the older site.  If we didn’t pull this off, either the Reporter would cease to exist or there would be a break in daily service.  While we worked to get the new site built, Phil Saulnier, who had built the original site, found a way to archive all items posted between 2008-2019. Phil also made the necessary technical magic happen so that when Oct. 1 arrived, the ‘new’ site was fully operational.  Whew!

Curious and dedicated readers followed our website and our Facebook postings.  Our new logo, designed by local artist Jess Frease, made us look and feel different from the former Holliston Reporter.com. But you can guess what came next…on March 13, 2020, the town began to shut down.  COVID entered our town, and in response, we wore masks and shut our doors to many important aspects of the community.  With schools dismissed and meetings and events canceled, Holliston quieted very quickly.  Our greatest task became communicating cancelations, changes, and directions to residents.  Our crawler announced COVID cases and deaths.  Publishing COVID resources were added to our site.   The Holliston Reporter was the Cains’ “cottage industry,” as each of us (Chris in the office and me at the dining table) Zoomed into meetings via computers, complying with new adjustments made to MA General Laws for open meetings.  We created a new column— “Bright Spot”— to record birthday and graduation car parades as well as neighbors helping neighbors. Readers appreciated joyful moments.

By 2021, Zooming events remained de rigueur, and events experienced a second year of cancellations.  More parents working from home seemed to help our readership, and after giving advertisers a short payment reprieve, we returned to billing.  As was our practice, all advertising income supported website expenses with excess to local non-profits, now experiencing greater need. In August, realizing the daily publishing work had become taxing for the two of us, we adopted a 3 times/week schedule; this maintained the Tuesday morning wrap-up of the Monday night Select Board meeting for readers who had become fans.

We can thank our lucky stars that COVID began to recede.  After a grueling couple of years, programs and events quickened their pace.  With the encouragement of a few brave souls, additional contributors were found. In retrospect, we were fatigued.  Our “hobby” had turned to “work.”   Our desire to untether ourselves from publishing/editing/writing/gathering/caring for “Local Reporting by Local People” was outpacing our energy to continue.  Short forays to explore Maine and our adopted state found us in hotels with computers, Zoom meetings, emails, writing and revising—dreaming of truly getting away. In a carefully considered decision, it was time for us to “retire” from what started as our retirement hobby. 

A resident with the desire to avoid plunging Holliston into a news vacuum volunteered.  The new publisher, Doreen Martel, is an experienced publicist and a well-known Lion. We wish Doreen the same appreciation, interest, and understanding the community has shown us.

Respectfully, The retiring caretakers of Holliston’s news.

A version of this summary has been sent for inclusion in the book commemorating Holliston’s 300th.