From the Editors: August 2026
Group projects
Shortly after the publication of our glorious 40 Under 40 issue in July, our Managing Editor Erin Phillips (hi, that's me), was whisked away to attend the annual Association for Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) conference, happening this year in Palm Springs, California. Usually it is our small-but-mighty team of four in attendance, but this year (due to a number of compounding factors) I went all on my own. I was (graciously) afforded a fellowship from AAN to attend – I just had to get myself out there. That turned out to be a harrowing experience involving a hailstorm delaying a flight, "sleeping" on a love seat in the Denver airport, being rerouted through Las Vegas on one hour of "sleep," and finally making it to Palm Springs the next day, but not, however, before they bestowed their annual awards, for which our modest Erie Reader was up for two – one for Best Cover Design and one for Best Political Column for "From the Editors" – how meta! I was deeply sad to have missed the awards ceremony, but more on that in a moment.
I quickly showered, grabbed (yet another) coffee, and headed down to the conference just in time to catch my favorite annual activity – 50 Ideas in 50 Minutes. During this presentation, the room (made up of editors, staff writers, and publishers from dozens of other alt-publications from across the country) gets the mic, as it is passed around and we all share story ideas, themes, creative content, etc. Not only do I always come away with loads of great story ideas to make into our own, but I also get to share a lot of the awesome ideas our contributors come up with. I spoke about "Edwina Tries…" and how anyone could make this idea work in their individual cities – inspiring folks to try new things. I shared about "Take Your Beer For a Walk" and how it may not be feasible in most cities that don't afford their residents the opportunity to walk around with an open container – but how taking a walk through a neighborhood and writing about it can be universally applied. I talked about individual features (like when we did a high school Black History Month art project that became our cover), theme issues (like our Food Issue and how we focused on Erie's sourdough bread culture), and I talked about our yearly "Erie Reader Gives" feature for our annual community day of giving, Erie Gives Day.
Much like alt-papers, Erie Gives Day is a true group project. No one person makes a newspaper happen – it takes all of the ideas and work from all of us to get this thing to the presses every month (along with all the people who came before us who built it into what it is today). No one person, or people giving randomly, can sustain all of Erie's vast network of nonprofits. It takes a community of generosity and that community is on full display for Erie Gives Day (happening this year on Tuesday, Aug. 11, mark your calendars). It's astonishing to see those numbers grow every year and it is inspiring to know that, from the smallest to the largest amounts, giving is important to the people of Erie.
After feeling totally inspired by that 50 Ideas activity, I then popped into a presentation on making the most of our social media platforms, another on how to craft an AI policy (more on that next month), and then I boarded a bus (yes, still on an hour of "sleep"), along with all of my alt-brethren, to attend the AAN Honors, or Lifetime Achievement Awards, ceremony at a historic Palm Springs theater. Before they presented awards to three folks who have built legacy papers, establishing them in the 1970s and somehow keeping them going for all these years, they called me up on stage to give the Erie Reader the award for Best Cover Design, and my road-weary soul could not have felt fuller – to send that text back home to our team, and to be able to give congratulations to our winning designers (the award was for three of our covers, one from February by Nicholas Cardell Gore, and two from May and August, both designed by Nick Warren). This honor made me feel so swellingly proud of our small paper – and reminded me that this group project is so worth the effort, not just for this one prize but for the very real feeling of satisfaction that comes from making something that matters – and knowing that all of us are working together to help bolster our little community, one issue at a time.
