Words can change the world just like the pages in community papers
After 4-years with Caxton Joburg West, news editor Jarryd Westerdale says his final goodbye to his communities.
Roodepoort Record and Northsider news editor Jarryd Westerdale’s heartfelt ode to his beloved community:
Letters and notes have always been a cathartic expression of emotion. Abandoning ink and paper for keyboard-typed annotation has not taken away any of the allure as matters of the heart flow through the fingertips into the keys in much the same way that the pen was a conduit for meaningful articulation.
The stories and articles seen in these physical and digital pages are letters to a community, showing appreciation for the efforts of individuals looking to make the lives of those around them better, or boldly celebrating personal and shared triumphs. It has been an honour and a privilege to have contributed to the long history of these pages while capturing the sentiments and concerns of the moment.
Not all letters are ones of affection. Letters can plead for forgiveness, seek redemption, or express acceptance of a journey reaching its end. As personally rewarding as the last four years have been, a time has come for me to seek a new challenge and make room for another to take on the responsibility of documenting the endeavours of community heroes.
Where I have fallen short or not lived up to expectations, I apologise. I like to think those times were far outnumbered by the better times, and I always tried to take the utmost care and respect for the topics addressed.
Thank you to my editor Adéle for giving me a chance to do something extraordinary and for always supporting my suggestions and covering for me when I acted out of turn. Adéle could have scanned over my emailed application but in opening it, she set in motion the rewards of the last four years.
To my colleagues past and present, the atmosphere in the newsroom was welcoming and supportive, allowing me the confidence to express myself openly and honestly. To the friends I leave behind, continue to support each other and push each other every day to be exemplary.
Community publications are still a powerful tool to force accountability from officials and to highlight the wrongs residents are subjected to. The readers demand excellence from those who compile the words on these pages but understand they are only human too.
To everyone, thank you for the lasting memories. All the individuals and organisations I have dealt with have left an imprint and I thank you all for the opportunity to have contributed. When I wrote my first letter here, I quoted a speech by an Australian creator and those words still ring true today: ‘Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.’
