The New Journal, a Yale undergrad mag which publishes five times a year, has a grasp of the off-campus New Haven community which allowed most other student publications. The September issue has short article covering the Long Wharf Theatre gala held in honor of the 90th birthday of ubiquitous local foundation board member Louise Endel. The story, by Cindy Ok, takes the proper, realistic and trenchant approach, and actually reaches conclusions—something the local press rarely thinks to do in these advertising-grubbing days of bare-facts reporting. “Though it is highly unlikely that Endel connects more people than Facebook,” Ok writes, referencing a description of Endel by effusive New Haven Register columnist Randy Beach earlier in the piece,” she can be compared to Long Wharf Theatre as a gracefully aging city fixture.”
The current New Journal also a six-page article, with lots of original photos, on the resurgence of the Institute Library on Chapel Street under its new executive director Will Baker. It’s the most extensive and revealing reporting I’ve seen done on this deserving and underappreciated private lending library, a place so rich in history that most reporters (including myself) kind of wander away from its precarious present tense.
The New Journal seems to want to genuinely understand non-Yale institutions. They don’t treat New Haven like some mysterious outside world.