As we approach the close of 2024, we extend our warmest holiday greetings to you!
To allow our hardworking Spy team some well-deserved rest after an eventful year, The Spy will operate on limited coverage from December 24 through January 5. We look forward to returning refreshed and ready to serve you in 2025.
The Spy community is nothing short of extraordinary in a time when local news is facing significant challenges nationwide. In a region with a population of fewer than 250,000 across four counties, our network of Spy newspapers attracts an incredible 1 million unique visitors annually.
This remarkable engagement reflects not only the uniqueness of The Spy but also the vibrant, engaged communities in Chestertown, Centreville, Talbot County, and Cambridge. To all of you—our readers, supporters, and contributors—the editors, writers, and volunteers are deeply grateful for your unwavering support.
Last week, we invited you to share your thoughts on The Spy’s content and how we can continue to improve. Today, I’m excited to share some key takeaways from your invaluable feedback.
First, thank you to the hundreds of readers who took the time to participate in our survey. Your insights were thoughtful and constructive, and we are actively considering them as we plan for 2025. A more detailed update will follow in January.
One theme that stood out in the feedback is your high regard for our coverage of local stories and developments. Many of you expressed a desire for more consistent reporting on local government activities, and we’re eager to explore creative ways to meet this need.
Another area of focus was political balance. Several readers highlighted the absence of socially conservative, pro-Trump perspectives among our local columnists, op-eds, and letters to the editor. As publishers, we recognize this gap and assure you that we’ve made efforts to recruit conservative voices. However, the current political climate has made it challenging for many of these individuals to participate publicly.
With the recent election of a new President and the resulting shift from campaign politics to governance, we hope this will encourage more diverse viewpoints to join the conversation.
On a related note, we were pleased to see that most readers understand and support The Spy’s nonprofit mission. While opinions varied on the best ways to secure funding, there was broad acknowledgment that financial support is essential. We’re committed to finding thoughtful and minimally intrusive ways to raise the modest funds necessary to sustain our work.
Thank you again for being such an integral part of The Spy community. Here’s to an exciting 2025 filled with fresh ideas, meaningful stories, and continued collaboration.
In the meantime, we have set up a special end-of-year donation page, which can be found here.
Happy Holidays!
Jim Dissette
Publisher and Editor
Carol Niemand says
You are the very best and just cannot imagine our community without your wonderful coverage of so many interesting stories and people- have even met folks because of your coverage afforded them in your very personal stories – thank you so much for being THE. CHESTERTOWN. SPY
Deirdre LaMotte says
The Spy is a treasure for those of us on the Eastern Shore! My 2 cents for what it’s worth regarding pro Trump
discussion. If this was 2008 or 2012, bring it on. Two sides with different policy goals for our democracy.
But now? We have a wanna be dictator who has won with the help of our enemy Russia and the richest man in the world, who wants deregulation…for more riches. This same President elect who refused to accept his defeat in 2020 and plotted a riot in the Capital, to put it mildly. He should never be near the nuclear football yet here we are in
Wonderland and 1984. How brilliant and prescient were those two authors!?
So, pro Trump columnist? What will they discuss,I wonder? How we do not need Medicare, social security and food stamps so the Billionaires will get their tax breaks? Will they discuss the US need for pulling out
of the one organization that has kept world peace for 75 years, NATO, because Putin wants that, and we know who is in charge of Trump? Will they write about the need to ban woman’s autonomy and the interstate sale of abortion pills? How about the appointments of thoroughly unqualified people to ruin their agencies, on purpose?
I imagine they will not write about the to-be-installed fascist administration was voted so by the same voting body that continually votes to sustain our daily gun slaughter. We don’t just tolerate that, we demand its sustenance as an apple-pie manifestation of our unique American spirit. It is sickening.
I am concerned because this is not normal and the MSM has made Trump “normal”. Fascism is the enemy of
Democracy. Is that the “new normal” for the press?
a riot