Jeff Potter
Matters of fact
Jeff Potter has edited The Commons since 2008 and has been working in and around newspapers and other publications for more than 40 years. He's still learning.
Slow views
We’re taking steps to get your contributions into print faster. Thank you for your patience.
As mentioned in a previous issue, the Voices section has had a record-breaking number of contributions in recent months. Despite our best efforts, some contributors have been waiting far too long to see their work in print - this week we have tried to catch up with the letters...
Too much of a good thing, but not for much longer
Of late, we at The Commons have been receiving an unprecedented number of contributions to the Voices section, a volume that has outstripped the capacity of your editor to keep up. We are committing to adding pages to the section to meet the demand, starting with next week's issue,
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Context is everything
Owing to a production error, the print edition of last week's Commons omitted the byline and author information for "We can break the car's cultural grip," a piece written by Rebecca Jones of Brattleboro. Jones is a physician practicing in Brattleboro and a member of 350 Brattleboro, a local volunteer group dedicated to climate justice. To be clear, this was squarely my mistake. The online version of the piece was properly attributed. * * * On a related note: As...
Digging out
Hours after the snow stopped falling, Windham County continued to dig out from a late-winter nor'easter that dumped 3 feet of snow - or more - in many spots in higher elevations. The storm knocked out power, telephone, cable, and internet for thousands. In the process, residents found themselves stranded in cold, dark homes as their roads were rendered impassible by downed trees, live wires, disabled vehicles, accidents, and - everywhere - thick, heavy snow. With his southern Vermont readers...
Sacred cloth
When Mark Ebenhoch heard the news of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, he knew what he had to do. The retired Marine and part-time Brattleboro area resident began working the phones and social media from his winter home in Key West, Florida, connecting with his network of friends and associates who by and large are LGBTQ people - who Ebenhoch simply calls “the community.” Within a day, Ebenhoch had made arrangements for Section 93...
Freedom of the press — and responsibilities
I can speak only for myself, but I bet other newspaper editors - and particularly editors of editorial pages and op-ed sections like this one - share my perspective that our political landscape is forcing us to question and re-evaluate how we cover political races and what we choose to present in these pages under the guise of opinion and commentary. My current conundrum: To what extent do readers have the right, and to what extent do I have an...
No, it most definitely wasn’t Maggie
Of all the aspects of editing a newspaper, one of the most challenging - and rewarding - is coming up with appropriate art for the Voices section. If I do my job right, I'll find illustrations or photos that will draw readers into a piece, that will be editorially appropriate and compatible with the writing, and that, in short, will enhance everyone's perceptions and experience. When I was preparing to publish Rev. Lise Sparrow's outstanding paean to teachers - and...