In August of 2011, after 36 years as a newspaper reporter/editor at the New Haven Register I was told on a Monday morning, with no notice, I was being laid off. I was the editor — the top guy — at the Register at the time. I had worked my way up from a reporter in the Naugatuck Valley bureau, hired in 1976, to editor of the entire news operation of the second largest newspaper in the state, when I was named editor in 1996.

In 2011, after laying off dozens of reporters, editors, and photographers, closing bureaus, and slashing budgets in an effort to keep a dying business afloat in the Internet news Tsunami that we were living in, I was the latest victim.

My point?

In January of this year, after working in a number of different news-related fields the past few years, I sent an email to Christine Stuart, editor of CTNewsJunkie.

I am so glad I did.

CTNewsJunkie covers news that, by and large, newspapers and broadcasters no longer cover.

Why? They don’t have enough reporters.

So what? Here’s so what. The state is experiencing its worst financial crisis in decades. It is in the midst of an incredible debate on who and what type of guns people should carry and, at the same time, there is a heroin and opioid epidemic that is killing our young people at alarming numbers.

In the months I’ve worked with CTNewsJunkie, I’ve been energized walking the halls of the state capitol, covering the issues of the day, meeting the people who shape the issues that make Connecticut a state that continues to grab far more than its share of national headlines for a state that is as small as we are.

Without CTNewsJunkie you wouldn’t know about much of this. You read about it daily on its website or on the many newspapers that affiliate with its coverage.

You might not notice that its CTNewsJunkie, and not a staff reporter from that paper covering these critical issues, but what I can tell you is that you wouldn’t be reading coverage of these life-changing issues at all without CTNewsJunkie.

But, CTNewsJunkie isn’t immune from what has hurt the rest of the news business the past few decades. Namely, people want their news for “free.”

Problem is that “free” news is often what news websites report or aggregate on what the Kardashians are doing, or whether or not O.J. Simpson really killed Nicole.

There are very few reporters left these days covering issues of importance to what really matters to you in Connecticut — taxes, gun control, drug laws, school costs, state and local economic woes.

But that coverage comes at a cost.

Plain and simple — we need your help. So that we can continue on our mission to cover your town, your state, your issues.

Please consider purchasing a subscription plan so that we can give you the kind of “real” news coverage you’ve come to expect and deserve.

If you would like to make a contribution or start a subscription, click here to choose a plan.