Previous
Our Gifts
?Every once in a while, one of our readers will get upset with something we say in this space, or with something one of our contributors writes - someone like Mr. Busch on page 15, for example. In the latter part of his letter, Mr. Busch gets a couple of things wrong, though. He accuses us of littering his driveway, but it’s actually another local newspaper that does that; the Cosmos goes in his mailbox. And because it does, we can’t grant Mr. Busch’s request to stop sending him the paper; there are a few things you can’t ask Canada Post to not put in your mail. Political pamphlets are on that short list, and so are community newspapers.
We’re happy to report, though, that readers like Mr. Busch are a rarity. Most of those who take the trouble to tell us how they feel about our publication say they like the Cosmos a lot. They say they enjoy looking at it, for one thing. It’s colourful and spacious, with lots of pictures. They even enjoy looking at the ads!
Our colourfulness comes because we don’t charge much more for colour ads than we do for black and white. Printers don’t charge us much more, so why should we? Most other newspapers still put a big premium on colour, but it’s unjustified. Our spaciousness, meanwhile, comes from a simple decision our original designer, Lee Ursel, made in the beginning: to only have five columns instead of six on most pages. That means the gutters are bigger, which means the reader can breathe easier.
Our readers enjoy the ads not only because of their colour, but because they’re in good proportion to our editorial space. We don’t smother you with ads - or with flyers! We also look good because we’ve attracted some great artists in our short time in town: photographers like Nina Linton, Dee Meehan, Lezley Woodhams and Stuart Blower (who also designs many of our bigger ads), and now Stephen Wright, who you’ll see a lot of this week, and cartoonists like John Wood and Andrew Miller (of Moe’s Meatz), who just keep getting better and better.
People also tell us they love reading the Cosmos; many have told us they read it from cover to cover (which admittedly doesn’t take long - we’re not the New York Times). And we have been blessed with some great writers since the very beginning. Some are professional journalists, like Ted Barris (also one of our founding shareholders) and the ageless Roger Varley, but others are bus drivers, chefs, students, artists, chiropractors. They share a talent for stringing words together, and a passion for telling stories.
One of the principal reasons we created the Cosmos was to provide a forum for as many local voices as possible, and we think it’s been our biggest success. When we have to provide three pages for letters to the editor, as we did last week, we think we’re living up to the subtitle on our front page: “Your Universe”.
So as we celebrate our fifth Christmas, with our next issue being Volume 6, No. 1, we count our gifts from this community: marvellously talented contributors, steadfast shareholders, loyal advertisers who continue to believe they reach Uxbridge better through our pages, and above all, readers who continually give us feedback on what we’re doing right, and where we can improve.
We thank you all for bringing us this far. It can only get better.
