MARK SCHUMANN

Just one week from tomorrow the inaugural issue of Inside Vero Extra will roll off the presses, to be delivered the following day to 8,000 homes in Vero Beach – on the mainland and the barrier island.  An additional 2,000 copies will be available in stores, offices and public buildings throughout the city.

I have been asked, “Why another newspaper for Vero Beach?”  The question is a fair one, particularly given that printing and distributing a newspaper consumes natural resources.  Undertaking this effort can only be justified if Inside Vero Extra will serve an important community need not already being met by one of several other publications circulated in Vero Beach.

Throughout the community, people continually tell me they are appreciating Inside Vero, the monthly news magazine my colleagues and I have been publishing since April.  Admittedly, there are those who do not welcome competition or appreciate diversity of perspective. In our free-market economy and open democracy, perhaps the most important competition is in the arena of ideas.  Our challenges are too complex for our country, or our community to be governed by ideologues.  There are, after all, many sides to the truth.  We desperately need, and would be wise to welcome, differing perspectives on how to address the challenges of our day.

The late James Reston, who served for decades as a reporter, editor and columnist for the New York Times, wrote in his memoirs of making a hasty and wrong call when he immediately cabled the results of a close horse race to the Associated Press offices in New York.  A few minutes after sending the “news,” Reston heard the track announcer call the race for a different horse.  Reston got it wrong, he said, because he was not standing at the finish line.  Reston wrote that the humbling experience of having to cable a retraction and correction taught him the importance of perspective.

Offering differing perspectives will be one of the primary missions of Inside Vero Extra.  Our goal is not to advise readers what to think, but to encourage them to think.

Secondly, Inside Vero Extra will offer a weekly account of community news in more breadth and depth than the regional daily or the barrier island weekly.  Our coverage will include news of government and the schools, social and lifestyle news, arts and entertainment, sports and recreation, the work of non-profits, personality profiles, courthouse news, complete obituaries and more.

Though media analysts are skeptical about the future of daily newspapers, there will continue to be a need for the dissemination of community news. Demonstrating his conviction that weekly newspapers can continue to serve this vital role, Warren Buffett just last year invested in a group of community weeklies. The key, Buffett said, is for these newspapers to offer reporting and commentary that is timely, relevant, balanced and fair.  To that end, my colleagues and I, including Kelly Coleman, Marsha Damerow, Martine Fecteau, Janie Gould, Stephanie Herzog, Pat Lavins, Derek Muller, James Redmon, Ed Taylor and Milt Thomas, will strive, not to wow our readers, but to offer a balanced account of life in Vero Beach.

For a fresh perspective on local news, read Inside Vero Extra, and please consider supporting the many advertisers who are making it possible for us to serve you.