Manning the Helm for Cecil County’s New Weekly Newspaper

After doing a little digging, I’ve uncovered an interesting tidbit of information about the soon-to-be new newspaper here in Cecil County, The Cecil Guardian.  The editor of this new self-billed “community newspaper that listens to your needs” will be none other than Chesapeake Bay boating icon Ira Black. (Full disclosure:  Ira gave me my first job in Publishing at The Mariner way back in 1997.)  Ira’s brand of wry, off-beat humor and straight shooting for The Mariner, then later with his self-titled Ira Black’s Nor’easter Magazine, helped make him one of the most recognizable personalities in the Chesapeake Bay boating scene over the past twenty years.

Reports are that Ira will man the helm of this new weekly publication from its initial stages, kicking off with a December 3 premiere issue.   Speaking as someone who worked closely with Ira for a number of years, his understanding of publishing dynamics and how to appeal to a large audience can be invaluable, and his sometimes obsessively old-school copy-editing can be a welcome change to the world of rampant typos and grammatical missteps that pervades print (and online) publications these days.  Honestly, that part always annoyed me when I was writing for him, but I have a little better appreciation for it’s usefulness now.  I guess age and experience really does add perspective.

Anyway, this new wrinkle in the print publications wars in this area only adds to my interest in seeing how this progresses.  Things are definitely heating up.