Two Items

Taking a little time off; and an appeal to readers to become paid subscribers; words published to date in The Plymouth County Observer: 191,680, or 791 pages

Dear Readers,

Thank you all for your generous support over the nearly 18 months The Plymouth County Observer has been in existence. As you may know, I started this online publication as an emergency measure in the Spring of 2022, because of the decline of local news and the series of crises — Holtec’s proposed dumping in our bays, predatory casino developers, sand mining and the protection of the aquifer — that have buffeted our Towns. This publication has primarily concerned itself with res publicae, public things, from water and land and air, to laws and elections and government. I have been deeply moved by, and appreciative of, your kindness and generosity, and the fact that you are reading the work I produce — so thank you, sincerely, to every one of you.

I really don’t love having to do this, but I am also writing to you today regarding two things in particular: the first is to let you know that I am going to be taking the next fourteen days off, having not taken any real time off since January, 2022, working on both Save Our Bay and this publication, which have been how I filled my time after my community college professor job was eliminated during the pandemic.

The second thing is to make an appeal to you: if you find this publication useful, and if you aren’t already a paid subscriber, I would ask you to consider becoming one. (And again, my sincere gratitude to those who are already paid subscribers). The “subscribe” button is below this paragraph (let me know if there are any issues, as always). I certainly do understand if readers are not in a position to subscribe; but if you are, I’ll be frank that my resources are getting towards the bottom end of the barrel, and paid subscriptions allow this publication to continue.

You can also leave a donation or a tip, via Paypal, here; the actual web address, for those who prefer that, is https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/plymouthcountyobserv (I should note that my full name is John Benjamin Cronin, lest there be any confusion about who “John Cronin” is on Paypal — that’s me.)

I’ll again be frank that marketing and the solicitation of funds are not things I am good at, and in fact, are things which I find quite difficult. I did therefore want to support that request with some facts:

In case any readers are not aware, The Plymouth County Observer is a one-man operation. I research, report, write, edit, format and lay out, and publish the articles here entirely on my own, in places ranging from coffee shops and public libraries to the slopes of Manomet Hill on one occasion, using my phone’s Wifi hotspot, when I needed to get out a particularly pressing item that arose while I was mountain biking.

Indeed, there is so much to cover locally that I am thrilled that The Plymouth Independent is nearing its launching point. I view that publication not as a competitor, especially since we appear to be doing somewhat different things, but rather as a welcome ally, alongside surviving local newspapers, in the struggle to keep local news, and therefore local democracy, afloat.

I have only been able to cover a fraction of what I would like to (for instance, I still need to write a long-form, detailed story on the crisis around homelessness and the unhoused in our region).

To give a sense of scale, thus far, I’ve researched, reported, written, edited and published — excluding the small number (six, by my count) of pieces written by others — 112 individual articles and email announcements since April, 2022. Most of these articles are free, especially if they are of essential public interest. Those that are for paid subscribers help pay for the cost of producing the free articles. Because this is not a daily newspaper, or even a traditional weekly paper, but rather something like a mixture of a college lecture, a long-form, fact-based opinion journal like The Nation or Harper’s, and an 18th century pamphlet, these articles tend to be somewhat long, and I try to take a broader historical perspective on the events of the day.

Taken together, the articles I have written, edited, and published since this publication’s inception have totaled approximately 191,680 words, which comes to about 791 pages (doubled-spaced, in size 12 Times New Roman font).

(View over the saltmarsh towards Great Wood and Little Wood Islands and the Back River, from Gurnet Road, in Duxbury, Summer, 2023; credit — J. Benjamin Cronin.)

 Of those 791 pages, approximately 72,000 words, or just under 300 pages (297 pages) unformatted (with formatting, like footnotes and photos, it was longer, about 371 pages) in calendar year 2022. The remaining 494 pages have been written and published in the first nine months of this calendar year, 2023.

Indeed, the last two substantive articles I wrote, and published in short succession, together run to 102 pages (the article on cranberry strikes was 30 pages long; the Holtec/MassDEP comment article, which took almost literally a week to put on Substack even after I had submitted it to DEP, because I had to redo each footnote manually due to the incompatibility of word processing programs between Google Docs and Substack, was 72 pages long).

Therefore, I hope readers will understand that I am tired.

I am not halting the publication, let me be clear, but I do need a rest, and I am simply taking the time between now and the next NDCAP meeting in Plymouth (9/25) off to take care of life things — duties around the house, yard, and relating to my family and friends which I have neglected; switching primary care physicians; and above all, continuing my efforts at getting a decent, full-time job (the process of finding a job in 2023 is, at least in my experience, quite difficult; I’ve sent out over 250 job applications this summer, which produced about ten interviews, some of which potential employers “ghosted” me, in the parlance of our time; and don’t get me started on the scammers and frauds who prey on people seeking employment. All of this, I am told, is unfortunately typical of our era.)

I’m proud of the work that has gone into the Plymouth County Observer, and hope it has been of some value to you, and I hope to continue it — for all of these reasons, I am hopeful that some readers may see fit to become paid subscribers if you have yet to do so, and are able to; and/or that you might consider making a donation to the Plymouth County Observer here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/plymouthcountyobserv

As always, I am happy to answer any questions, concerns, constructive criticism, or any other issues you might wish to reasonably raise, and can be reached via email at plymouthcountyobserver@gmail.com

Thank you again very sincerely for your support, and for reading — I really do appreciate it. I will be back on the 25th.

With Gratitude,

Ben Cronin