MARCH 2021.VOL. 21, NO. 03. PORTLAND, MAINE.
PORTLAND’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER. FREE!
Is This Any Way to Run a WEN survives despite the Newspaper?! Community Newspaper Celebrates 20 Years
decline of print media
Previous WEN publisher Ed King’s recollections from the first 12 years
By Tony Zeli
across this ad – I think it was in the Cas- By Ed King co Bay weekly – looking for somebody When I took over The West End A lot of interesting, exciting, funny, to start a newspaper in the West End. I News in 2014, I’m sure a lot of folks strange, baffling, weird things (remember thought, well, there it is. And so, I basically thought I was being foolish. A common the topless march on Congress Street?!) applied and went from there,” said King. question was, “Why a newspaper?” Print happened in the twelve years that I was news was not exactly a trending industry. Turns out, Ethan Strimling, long be- running the West End NEWS. Here are a Turns out, the same was true for Ed King fore he was mayor, was running a nonprof- few of them: when he began WEN twenty years ago. it in the West End and wanted to publish a community newsletter. Ed King got the Marge Niblock’s Cops-and“I feel like I was getting into the newsjob, sold the ads, wrote, edited, and dis- Robbers paper business just as the newspaper busitributed the inaugural issue of the West ness was dying, but twenty years later I The first issue of the West End End Times in February 2001. But, after the wasn’t totally right on that…” King told NEWS hit the street on St. Patrick’s Day, first and only issue of the Times, there was me during a Zoom interview last month. March 17th, 2001. The front page was a falling out, and King took the paper in his “But that was a time of a lot of upheavfestooned with shamrocks, honoring the own direction. In March 2001, The West al in the newspaper business and a lot of holiday, the history of the Irish communiEnd News was born. newspapers did go out of business. A lot ty in the West End, and my own personal of traditional, especially daily, newspapers “I’d like to say I was being altruistic, or heritage. The front-page story, written by at that time went out of business.” community-minded, or high-minded in any Barbara McGivaren, was about the newway, but the fact is I had to pay the rent … ly-forming Portland Police Review Board. Yet, our community paper has manand there it was looking me in the face.” It was the first of many police-related aged to survive through twenty challengstories that we would publish in the coming years. King attributed much of his sucAnd he did pay the rent, at least often ing years. Although I wrote many of the cess to keeping local news at the heart enough. King partly credits the newspapolice stories at the beginning, Munjoy of the paper, and the same is true today. per’s survival to keeping things small. From Hill’s Marge Niblock eventually became There will always be a need for local, day one he ran the paper out of his living our full-time crime reporter. Of course, neighborhood-level coverage that bigger room and that never changed. Though a publication our size could never afford players cannot deliver. about a dozen people were involved in a a full-time crime reporter, but Marge, a serious way with the paper during those retired artist from Philadelphia, loved the STARTING A NEWSPAPER early years, no one ever took a traditional police beat and spent most of her waking Ed King recalled saying to a friend salary. It was all volunteer. From stuffing hours churning out cops-and-robber stomonths before he started The West End inserts into the newspaper with the com- ries – just for the fun of it! News, “You know what this area really munity police officer to driving around needs is a newspaper.” At that time, he Portland with friends to deliver copies to Liz Looks at the Stars swears he had no intention of starting one. a hundred locations, the community came Many of the best ideas for the West together and helped the News thrive. End NEWS came from our readers them“A couple months later, low and behold, I am looking for a job and a ran Cont'd on Pg. 5 selves. One Sunday morning, I was stand-
Page 5
Covid-19 Vaccination Center opens at Portland Expo
Page 6
Browntail Moth Caterpillar Problem at Western Promenade
Pages 12-13
Contributors Reflect on 20 Years with the West End Community
Ed King’s illustrations were a popular feature during the early years of our community paper.Turn to Page 2 to see his latest which honors WEN’s 20th anniversary. -Ilustration by Ed King ing in front of Paul’s Food Market on Congress Street (our best distribution point) when along came future City Councilor Kevin Donoghue and his friend Liz McMahon. After Kevin introduced me to her, Liz said, “You know what that newspaper needs - a horoscope!” “Why don’t you write one?” I challenged her. “OK, I will,” she took up the challenge, and about a week later she delivered the first “Liz Looks at the Stars” horoscope column. It wasn’t strictly a horoscope column. Sometimes it was a history lesson, or a cooking column, or even advice to the lovelorn. It was whatever Liz
Cont'd on Pg. 2
Pages 16-17
Layne’s Wine Gig Remembers Favorite Spots from Yesteryear