By David Gordon, president
CVPost Board
“Behind the Post” is an outgrowth of our desire for the Chippewa Valley Post to be as transparent as possible (see http://cvpost.org/about-2/mission-statement/ for our full Transparency policy). It will be an ongoing effort and, in our current “soft launch” phase, I will provide updates on how the CVPost website is developing and some insights into why we’re developing it this way.
If you’ve found this column, you’ve probably already noticed that the website took on a different look on Thursday, March 26. Thanks to major site development work by CVPost board member Jamie Paige and David Fares, a Memorial High School grad who now works as a professional web developer in Houston, we added several options that weren’t possible with the website’s original template.
You also may have noticed that a “Commentary” tab has been added at the top of the home page. This is the first step toward implementing one of our key goals – to promote thoughtful and civil dialogue about issues and ideas on which reasonable people may disagree. We strongly invite you to submit your contribution to this dialogue. But before you write anything, please take a look at the paragraph at the very top of the “Commentary” page. It specifies (among other things) that all contributions must be relevant to the Chippewa Valley, civil in tone and they will not be posted if they’re written anonymously.
The first posting on the “Commentary” page marks another major step for the CVPost. It’s a column by Bill Lueders, the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (WCIJ), headquartered at UW-Madison (www.wisconsinwatch.org). The WCIJ makes its stories and columns available without charge to Wisconsin news media, and we’re now on its distribution list. We plan to run WCIJ material when the subject matter is directly relevant to the Chippewa Valley and its residents, and this Lueders column, focused on one aspect of the April 7 state Supreme Court election, meets that test.
And finally if, like me, you listen to Wisconsin Public Radio, you’ll be hearing some 15-second spot announcements about the CVPost. We’re delighted that WPR has become one of our Founding Sponsors and is providing this opportunity for us to raise our profile in the community. Our thanks to Dean Kallenbach, WPR’s regional manager, for his strong belief in and support of our mission.