The Mattapan Reporter is a free, monthly newspaper that is home-delivered to more than 11,000 homes and businesses in Mattapan's 02126 zip code each month. The paper comes out on the second Saturday of each month.
The Reporter is owned and operated by Boston Neighborhood News, Inc., which has been publishing neighborhood news in Boston since 1983.

Launching a new newspaper is never easy. Even when you've been in the newspaper business for 20 years, as we have at the Reporter, it takes long hours, plenty of imagination and hard work. Mostly, though, it's a labor of love. Especially when the end result is a product that has such an immediate and positive reaction. Here in Mattapan, even before we printed the inaugural edition last September, we were amazed by the excitement and encouragement from the neighbors we've talked to about the idea.

"Finally!" was a typical reaction. "Mattapan really needs its own paper!"

We agree. The Reporter Newspapers has actually been covering Mattapan for years now through our sister publications, the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston Haitian Reporter. We are no strangers to the neighborhood, its political leaders, or its issues.

What really makes a neighborhood paper soar, however, is not the newspaper company, although producing a quality, reliable, honest and fair publication is the first step in that process. To go to the next level, there must be a readership that is engaged, a full partner in the newspaper's mission.

The Mattapan Reporter's mission is straight-forward: we want to tell the stories of Mattapan's people, the stories that most often don't get told in the daily papers or the larger news media outlets in Greater Boston. We want to tell your story.

The last census said that Mattapan is home to about 40,000 people. But we're betting that Mattapan's got a million stories- about people, about events, about its many civic groups and non-profit community-based organizations. They are the stories that largely have gone untold- until now.

We hope that you will want to help us make the Mattapan Reporter a success, and there are several ways that you can help.

• Tell us about what's happening on your street and your block. If there's a neighborhood group that meets regularly, tell us so we can pass the word. We have a special section- Neighborhood Notables- that serves as a community bulletin board for all kinds of social and community events. And since the Reporter will be delivered free to the whole neighborhood, door-to-door, it's a great, cost-free way to get the word out about non-profit activities in Mattapan and the surrounding communities. You can mail in your event notices, fax them to 617-825-5516 or e-mail them to news@mattapanreporter.com.

• Let us know about interesting people in the neighborhood- a family member with a new job, students who have achieved high academic grades, a neighbor or relative who is making life better for the community.

We ask school principals to send us the list of their honor roll students, church pastors to send us their bulletins, civic groups to let us know of their meeting schedules and important neighborhood concerns.

We will also publish a full report each issue on police activities in the area. Our police logs will keep you informed of police activity on Mattapan's District B-3.

Finally, we look forward to working with community leaders and local activists as we develop this new newspaper into a vibrant and vital role in Mattapan's everyday life, and we welcome your advice, suggestions and comments on how we do that job.

-Ed Forry
Publisher
Boston Neighborhood News, Inc.
September, 2003