The cutesie photos of the "indie news" types and a self-absorbed article about self-absorbed people writing news make me realize that unless you have a certain "look" and immodest attitude about how "unique" you are, reading HCN really has no meaning (HCN, 10/2/06: From the ground up). Could you tell me if the staff members of the Crested Butte News are auditioning for a re-run of Mod Squad?

How admirable that they stacked the paper on the roof of their cars, and spent all night working. So what? If you want to start a new business, expect to work hard. But to advertise how tough it is lacks modesty. How vain your issue. How self-absorbed.

I helped run a moderately successful small outdoors magazine 30 years ago. We stayed up nights, laid out our copy and even stuffed 3,000 issues in envelopes every month because we could only afford second-class postage. We didn’t tell anyone about it, didn’t brag or promote how "hard" we worked. We did not try to attract attention to ourselves to show people that we were doing something "cool." We were sincere and focused.

Come on. If you want us to read about real news people working at the news business, show us real news people, not the trendy, hip, posing, self-absorbed show you ran through this recent issue.

Bruce Amaro
Danvers, Massachusetts