This very local newsroom, BenitoLink, is really much bigger than our board, our interns and our news team. We have folks who stop by the office to make sure we heard about a new business opening its doors or a fire down the street or about a meeting for seniors we shouldn’t miss.
It is a community-based news organization and residents can play a big part in our news production process from beginning to end—and even after the story is published.
In this case, we are sharing one of our favorites. Janet Mayou, a Hollister resident who voluntarily reads our stories (almost all of them!) and lets us know when we’ve made a mistake.
In her own quiet way, she is part of the BenitoLink team. She is so picky, nothing gets by her. You might ask, what kind of person does that? So, to get a glimpse into her personality, we wanted to share her story with you:
“I was a voracious reader as a young child. I got rheumatoid arthritis when I was six or seven, so I stayed home a lot and loved reading fairy tales, then biographies,” she recalls. “I read a biography of Winston Churchill in the fourth grade and a short book about JFK soon after he was assassinated.”
Mayou was raised in Santa Cruz County and a little less than 20 years ago moved to San Benito County. She and her husband Leon are very active in community and civic events. They attend lots of meetings related to Tres Pinos School, Hollister High School, the library and BenitoLink’s social events and forums.
“I like to keep up on our local government and schools by reading BenitoLink articles,” she said. “I attend election forums and find them worthwhile especially when local issues and initiatives confuse me.”
Unfortunately, Mayou wasn’t feeling well and uncharacteristically missed BenitoLink’s General Election Forum on Sept. 28.
One of Mayou’s favorite ways of spending time is reading to students. She said, “I have the most fun reading with the students at Tres Pinos School as I’ve done for the past 18 years.” The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and any book by Dr. Seuss are some of her favorites.
“I was an English major in college and worked briefly in educational publishing in Monterey. After serving nine years on the school board of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, I read agendas and supporting materials. I still skim through PVUSD agendas after over 40 years!”
Mayou has been involved in BenitoLink for many years and is a voracious reader. “I check the BenitoLink icon on my phone every morning and check BenitoLink periodically throughout the day to find new articles,” she said.
“I am a fanatic when it comes to spelling people’s names correctly.”
Predictably, most of BenitoLink’s writing errors occur when reporters and editors are rushing to get the story out or during the wee hours when our copy editor is not available.
Here’s an example of Mayou’s eye for detail from a Hollister High lockdown story, titled “Hollister High placed on lockdown following incident near the riverbed”
“Paragraph 3, line 1: Sheriff’s …..what, Office?”
Another time, Hollister High was in an earlier lockdown and we hurried to let readers know. Mayou asked, “What day was the lockdown- assume it was today….?”
Oops. She was right. The article was published swiftly and we had missed an important detail. (Mayou is pointing out that in the article published that day, we forgot to mention the date.)
The BenitoLink team reads one another’s stories to check for errors, missing information and making sure we have an unbiased approach. Articles are read by our Acting Editor, Eric Johnson, then go on to our wonderful copy editor, Paul Hersh. But, in the end, we are still human and we do make errors. So despite our efforts, she contributes her special skills to BenitoLink quite regularly.
We appreciate the many ways community members like Mayou contribute to our local news organization. We aren’t a big corporation or a newspaper owned by a hedge fund, we’re simply a locally created, small nonprofit built to serve its own county. We appreciate her dedication and good will.
We love it when our readers stay in touch. Let us know when we missed the mark but also let us know when you like something or even take a few minutes to write us an email and tell us about what kind of information you need. BenitoLink belongs to the community that created it and is improved by all the input, suggestions and ideas residents bring to the table.
Another email from Janet Mayou:
“(Headline) ‘Something new brewing on west side of Hollister’: correction
Caption under first photo: April 25 agenda(s) packet: delete the “s” in agendas”
Email from BenitoLink:
“Fixed. Thank you Janet!”