Newspapers in Michigan are declining. But, one newspaper editor in Ann Arbor isn’t worried.
Lucy Tobier is the editor of The Murray Ave. Times, a monthly newspaper. When Tobier started producing the paper, she was eight years old. Now, she’s 10.
At eight years old, she began interviewing interesting people who lived on her street. At that point, the papers she produced were half a page long. Now they range from 8-10 pages per issue.
When she begins an issue, she tries to figure out which houses on her street have “the most interesting news right now.”
Then, she gets to interviewing.
“First, I usually start asking them about the general things,” Tobier said, “and then I go deeper down and ask them about how they feel about it, how’s it changed their lives.”
Her goal for The Murray Ave. Times is to unite her neighborhood.
“I hope it brings everyone together, like in the winter when everyone’s locked up in their houses,” she said. “I hope it teaches people more about what’s happening outside their walls.”
One story she wrote with her friend and assistant editor Linnea is entitled “Snow Blower vs. Shoveling vs. Yooper Scooper.” The girls wrote that story when everyone in the neighborhood was trying to determine the best way to clear the snow from their driveways.
While Tobier’s paper does have a website, she prefers the actual print copy.
“I think it’s more interesting to read it on paper, because you can read it and it’s better,” she said.
When she grows up, Tobier wants to be a journalist or an editor. She also wants to write a realistic fiction book.
Tobier thought that as part of our story, we should have asked her where she sees The Murray Ave. Times going within the next few years. So we asked.
“Well, I either would have forgotten about it, or I would have made it a little bigger, made it an Ann Arbor paper, not just a street paper,” she said.
