044. Print Shop: "Napervillians have very strong opinions"

Photograph of parade
Parade on Jefferson Street in downtown Naperville, 1976
Over the years, the Naperville Sun has maintained its focus on events that are important to the community. Joni Hersch Blackman keeps her hand on the pulse of Naperville, using her column called “Cul de Sacs” as a platform to generate discussion about current issues that are close to home: “I usually select what I write just from living my day-to-day life. No matter what the subject is, there are very adamant people on both sides of the subject. I think anything that is a constant, is that Napervillians have very strong opinions about almost everything. People are generally respectful even when they disagree. The nicest thing is when I get an email from someone who says, ‘you read my mind.’ And I think that’s what my goal was at the very beginning, to be a voice for some of the people who have moved to town more recently. The editor that had first hired me, had asked for me to stick with Naperville things for the column. Now when you’re talking about whether or not its allowable to save seats on the parade route during the Memorial or Labor Day parades, that’s pretty much a strictly Naperville thing, and I do try to focus on strictly Naperville as often as possible, but we’re not that unique, so a lot of the topics that I cover I think could be of interest to people who live elsewhere.”