Fort Fairfield Journal marks 10th anniversary
The Fort Fairfield Journal recently celebrated 10 years in print. Started by 36-year-old sound system contractor, David Deschesne in May, 2004, the weekly newspaper has undergone some considerable changes over the past decade.
FFJ was started a few months after the former Fort Fairfield Review, the town’s 115-year-old newspaper, went out of business. Deschesne, who had no experience in writing or publishing decided to take on the project as a part-time venture. The part-time job soon turned into a full-time job as Deschesne underwent a rapid, highly vertical learning curve in the publishing business.
“Building speaker cabinets, or installing sound systems are really taking raw components and putting them together to form a finished product. In that respect, news writing and newspaper publishing was simply another finished product I learned how to assemble.”
Deschesne has no college education and has an admittedly vehemently independent and unconventional approach to publishing.
“I admit some of my ideas, or angles are a bit controversial, but that may only be due to the fact that people aren’t used to considering them because the rest of the controlled ‘mainstream’ news decides what they’ll report and what they won’t. This sort of self-imposed censorship by the mainstream media is what I was trying to circumvent. After all, there would be no point in writing just another mainstream-oriented newspaper — the newspaper stands are already filled with papers like that.”
Originally started in conventional newsprint, FFJ was printed on the press of the St. John Valley Times in Madawaska for its first four years.
“That was when I could only afford black and white copy,” said Deschesne. “In a world where all the other newspapers in the newsstand are full color, I knew I had to do something better on my front page, above the fold, in order to compete. So, I chose to focus on pictures that were better composed, interesting and shot with a good camera. You will not find a picture, on FFJ’s front page, of guys lined up handing an oversized check to someone else because that type of picture simply isn’t interesting.”
In August, 2008, FFJ began printing on a conventional large capacity black & white laser printer. The paper, printed on standard 11- by 17-inch paper, began to be assembled by hand using a proprietary process developed by David and is still in use today.
A few months later, FFJ advanced to providing a consistently full-color front page and ability to provide full color advertisements — a first for Fort Fairfield’s newspaper.
While his wife Tammy does assist in assembling and mailing subscriptions, David continues to research, write, photograph, design, layout, print, market, and distribute the Journal with a full-time staff of one person—himself.
Over the past 10 years, there has been a steady move by society away from hard copy printed paper for their news to Internet-based sources. Deschesne notes this convenience feature of the Internet may not be beneficial to society in the long run.
“Think of today’s technology 30, 50 or even 100 years from now. If our town’s history is archived solely in the digital realm and technology changes so dramatically, there conceivably will come a time when that information will be lost to future generations because of the inability to access it — not to mention the ease with which government and other malevolent actors can corrupt and change the information to suit their needs, much the same way the Ministry of Truth did in Orwell’s prophetic novel, ‘1984’.”
With the desire to archive the town’s and nation’s history in a hard-copy paper format — one that will always be “open” — Deschesne plans to continue printing the Fort Fairfield Journal as long as the market will support it.
While FFJ does have a web presence for convenience, it is currently being archived in hard copy print form at the Fort Fairfield Public Library, alongside a collection of over a century of the former Fort Fairfield Review.
