225 years in the game: Recorder remains dedicated to providing swift, quality news
The Greenfield Recorder celebrated its 200th birthday in 1992, between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement. And here we are 25 years later celebrating our 225th anniversary — covering stories of a resurgent Russia and attacks on NAFTA. In some ways, The Recorder is a constant in a changing world, and while it has changed in appearance and been published under different names over the centuries, it certainly has continued this past quarter century to be one of Franklin County’s most enduring and influential institutions. Through all those years we have provided information our readers want and need – through news and advertising.
For 225 years, news of vast changes in the world have flowed across the pages of The Recorder and its progenitors, as today’s staff and our predecessors have tried to execute the plan enunciated by the paper’s very first editor, a young Boston printer named Thomas Dickman, who promised in his first edition of the Impartial Intelligencer: “to make it the earliest informer of every important intelligence, whether foreign or domestic, and as serviceable as any publication subject to the same disadvantages.”
Today, most newspapers consider themselves to be digital-first publications that provide breaking news with video and interactive elements on the web, while still providing depth and curation in traditional printed newspapers. The Recorder is no different as we ride the waves of change like rafters on the whitewater of the Deerfield River. Our mission is the same as it was in 1992 and in 1792, but we are adapting to a new cyber delivery system and storytelling format.
We consider ourselves stewards of this enterprise, which has covered our communities and news of the broader world since the time of George Washington. We are married to this corner of Massachusetts and its residents — our readers, our neighbors — and so, today’s staff and those that follow us will continue to meet Thomas Dickman’s goal laid out 225 years ago.
