We have been busy of late, getting our special publications ready to publish before deadlines, interviewing and hiring a new reporter, contacting candidates for office for information on their views, catching up with the Amistad/St. Philip’s agreement and getting comments from neighbors regarding that agreement, and talking with the Lincoln County News editorial staff about sharing some news items. These are some of the reasons why I, along with my assistant editor Susan Johns, took a break from writing our columns last week. We needed to breathe!

The editorial staffs of the Boothbay Register/Wiscasset Newspaper, as well as our online newspaper Pen Bay Pilot and the Lincoln County News, have been short over the winter and each newspaper, try as they might, have been struggling to cover the towns and issues they normally cover due to a lack of reporters or news contributors. Thankfully, the Register got lucky and found someone to help with that situation. Welcome Frederick “Fritz” Freudenberger.

However, in our talks with LCN, we came up with a plan to share news if we feel our readers would like to know about what each newspaper is writing about. From time to time, the Register, Wiscasset Newspaper and Pen Bay Pilot will be using some of LCN’s articles (as evidenced by an LCN reporter name and byline), and the LCN will be publishing some of our material as decided upon by the editors. The trading of stories has already begun and we hope to continue it for years to come.

We have shared advertising with LCN for years so we thought it only natural, because of the lack of available reporters in the industry, to help each other out when we need to inform our readers.

We all learned at a young age that sharing is a kind gesture and we thank the LCN for suggesting this idea.