EDITORIAL: Synergy and the press (07/18/99)

EDITORIAL

Synergy and the press

The Joint Conferences of Ukrainian American Organizations are history now. Our editorial of two weeks ago characterized the event as an unqualified success and expressed hope that it had succeeded also in providing a new model of cooperation for the future based on the synergy envisioned by conference organizers.

This week we would like to focus on what the power of synergy means for The Ukrainian Weekly. The 28-page issue of this newspaper published on July 11 contained 12 pages dedicated to reports from the individual conferences and panels held during the Joint Conferences. The issue was a follow-up and a wrap-up to the coverage begun a week earlier when we published our lead stories on the mega-conference.

How did it happen that 11 different bylines appeared on the stories in our July 11 issue? Prior to the Joint Conferences The Weekly had contacted all the groups holding sessions during the five-day event and proposed that they become collaborators of our newspaper in presenting the important - and complete - story of the Joint Conferences to the Ukrainian community and the general readership of The Weekly.

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, the dedicated efforts of a core group of our regular contributors and the experience of our editorial staff, our plan of action worked. It worked marvelously! The end product was even better than we had expected. The reactions of our readers are just starting to come in. "Congratulations for excellent coverage of the Washington meetings," wrote one of our regular subscribers. Clearly these Joint Conferences and their coverage on the pages of this newspaper are appreciated by the community at large - not just by those who participated in one way or another in the events in and around Washington.

The Weekly's collaboration with volunteers from diverse organizations was an example of synergy at work, an example that fit - to a T - one of the definitions of this word: "cooperative interaction among groups that creates an enhanced combined effect." The teamwork exemplified by this collaboration vividly illustrates what we can do, together, for our community. It also demonstrates something that we have been saying for years, but that has become more and more evident as our community becomes more and more scattered. The Ukrainian press is key to the survival of our Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities, and of our Ukrainian diaspora. The Ukrainian press can be the network that keeps us all in touch.

While community leaders spoke at the last session of the Joint Conferences of Ukrainian American Organizations about establishing a council of presidents to meet regularly in order to consult on issues of concern to the entire community, this newspaper's correspondent commented by underlining that a corollary to their cooperation would be cooperation with and use of the Ukrainian press in order to keep the Ukrainian community at large informed about their work on those issues. "Use us" - that was the message to our community leaders. And, dear readers, that is also our message to you. Consider our newspaper's pages your pages; consider us your colleagues. And together we will be able to create a network that benefits us all and successfully transports our community into the 21st century.

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