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“I suspect our town does not understand how fragile its institutions are, because we still have them on an everyday basis.”
media industry turned into a dinosaur. However, our Back Page A Letter from ad in the Reporter has helped Lisa Harris and keep us alive. Ongoing response to the ad has been, Video Library In A Streetcar Named Desire, well, responsive. People Blanche DuBois declaims, definitely peruse the back “I have always depended on cover. It has always been a the kindness of strangers.” weekly printout of the local Today, the Santa Fe Reporter pulse. That ad reminds movis depending on the kindness ie buffs that Video Library is of friends. Specifically with still here. Even in mid-2020, its Friends of the Reporter when the world was barriprogram. caded, our ad kept assuring You can donate cash, people that yes, the Vid abides. check, card, euros, rubles, whatKeeping your name out there is ever, and that generosity identifies everything. you as part of a larger community effort Basically, if your business or service to keep our town’s one and only indepenneeds some media exposure, there is nothdent weekly newspaper to remain solvent, ing more interactive than the Reporter’s publishing, and available everywhere, for Back Page. free. Oh, you say do you not have a local busiSanta Fe is so lucky. We revel in the ness, so why advertise? Fine. Just give the world-class aspects of a big city—symphoReporter some money! nies, museums, fine dining, opera, film, Consider: every art form imaginable—all without trafWhat if our blue skies vanished? fic, smog, and crowds (except for Paseo de What if we could no longer see the Peralta during Indian Market). mountains? The climate breeds local indie shops, What if there were no river? small, amazing, and service-driven. Music, Well, our local institutions invoke the books, and yes, even video. Indies all. Rare same response of disbelief. entities all. Just like the Santa Fe Reporter. Thus we implore you: Do not let the Sometimes, though, I suspect our town Santa Fe Reporter become another Beloved does not understand how fragile its instituMemory like La Tertulia, Nicolas Potter tions are, because we still have them on an Books, Yucca Drive-In—all gone, all still everyday basis. They have not disappeared, mourned. as in so many other Zip codes, now bereft of Ergo, do not let the Santa Fe Reporter go such amenities, be it due to economy, panthe way of locally focused papers like the Los demic, or plain old zeitgeist. Alamos Monitor, the Rocky Mountain News, You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone. and, indeed, the Village Voice, which the Video Library is not gone. Reporter most resembles. Now 40 years old, the Vid has been supIt has been our hometown weekly since ported by the Reporter a lot over the de1974. cades. Back in the 2000s, it was a thrill when Please: Help keep it that way. Reporter readers consistently voted it “Best of Santa Fe.” But as video stores closed one Lisa Harris by one, finally the Reporter could no lonowner/operator ger fill the three voting slots, as the home Video Library
This letter from Lisa Harris is part of a series about Friends of the Reporter, a community model for supporting our journalism mission. Visit sfreporter.com/friends, to make a one-time or recurring donation or via check at PO Box 4910, Santa Fe, NM 87502. The New Mexico Local News Fund will match up to $3,000 in donations received through the end of 2021. Those who donate before Dec. 31 are eligible to enter a drawing for a necklace from Jane Hruska, a hand-blown Murano glass centerpiece, red with black streaks, on a silver omega chain.
Support us at sfreporter.com/friends SFREPORTER.COM SFREPORTER.COM • • NOVEMBER NOVEMBER17-23, 17-23,2021 2021
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