The Norwood News celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

Mosholu Preservation Corporation published the first issue in October 1988 for a simple reason: There was no local newspaper in the community and no way for local residents, organizations and institutions to communicate on a regular basis.

The first issue was only four pages. It featured a listing of events and an in-depth cover story about a massive sewer reconstruction project along Mosholu Parkway (that project eventually led to the disastrous massacre of the Norway maples along the parkway).

The paper grew steadily over the years from a monthly covering only Norwood to a bi-weekly covering all the neighborhoods of Community Board 7 with 10 special supplements a year.

Its success is remarkable because virtually most poor and working class communities in New York City do not have their own newspapers. The kind of vital local news and information that suburbs and more affluent city neighborhoods take for granted is mostly absent in neighborhoods like ours. Community newspapers grease a community’s civic wheels, by putting people and organizations in touch with each other and shining a spotlight on issues, projects, problems and the workings of government that would otherwise wither and worsen in the darkness. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said. And it is also the best fertilizer, nurturing the kind of civic action that is the hallmark of healthy communities.

We will find a suitable way to celebrate our 20th anniversary and honor our advertisers, readers and other supporters later this year (suggestions welcome). But in the meantime, the Norwood News is working to expand nonprofit neighborhood news in the borough. Last year, we launched the West Bronx News Network, a collaboration with the Highbridge Horizon and the Mount Hope Housing Company. The Network has three main projects: a new monthly newspaper for Community Board 5 called the Mount Hope Monitor; a youth journalism program for Bronx high school students that begins in February; and the West Bronx Blog, the first news and policy blog in the entire borough. We want to bring even more local news and information to even more Bronx neighborhoods in the coming months and years and serve as a model others in the city, state and country can replicate.

After 13 years at the helm of the Norwood News, I am taking a short leave from my duties as editor, in part to concentrate on strengthening and expanding the West Bronx News Network. My trusty deputy editor, Alex Kratz, whom many readers already know well, will be in charge of the paper during this time. So, if you see news, or better yet, are making it yourself, let him know.

As always, we’d love to hear from you.

Jordan Moss

Editor

P.S. Beginning in early February, I will be blogging at www.nonprofitjournalism.blogspot.com (in addition to occasional posts at www.westbronxnews.blogspot.com), which I hope will be a place where those interested can share their ideas and discuss nonprofit local media. I’m looking forward to your comments and suggestions.