Dear readers, these recent months have been tumultuous, for me and for many of those closest to me. My brief dismissal from – and subsequent reinstatement to – the ranks of the Kensington Chronicle has inspired me to look back on how much my personal and professional life has changed since we first launched the online edition of the Chronicle three years back. With that in mind, I’ve re-read all of the online editorials that I’ve written (with the exception of some of my recent pieces that don’t really fit that description). And this trip down memory lane has made me come to a startling realization: I had no conscious idea of how much of my life up to this point had been driven by fear.

Dear Neverlandians,

I needed to break the traditional structure of this column because this is a really special week. The last few months have been challenging for all of us as we watched our paper (and in some ways our town) become something we weren’t familiar with. Jas Hook had the best of intentions when he tried to take the Chronicle to a global level, but the truth is, Neverland can’t be bottled. It’s a rare place, uniquely its own – a sort of Camelot, or Brigadoon, or Narnia perhaps. In all my adventures across America, and Europe, and (upcoming!) Asia, I have never seen and will never see its like. But, wherever we go and whatever we do, we’ll always carry Neverland in our hearts. And we can share a little of its magic by continuing to represent the qualities that make it so great.

My fellow Neverlandians: longtime readers will be aware that our editorials are traditionally written by John Darling. Well, you may have heard that Mr. Darling is no longer with the K-Chron. A few other familiar faces have been let go as well. Honestly, ever since I took the reins from George Darling, I have had struggles with some of our legacy employees. I’ve been trying to take the paper in a brave new direction, and some people were just a little too entrenched in the old way of doing things. Sometimes taking a ship in a new direction means manning it with a whole new crew.

Dear Wendy,

So what do you do if you’re currently with someone in a long term relationship, but you think you have fallen in love with someone else. Who also happens to be in another long term relationship with someone. Do you say anything? Do you just ignore how you feel? I still love the person I’m with so it’s not like the current relationship is bad. It’s just hard when you think you also have feelings for someone else. Or if you have feelings for someone else, does that automatically mean I need to end my current relationship? Help Wendy! I’m so confused.

1. IT IS MANIPULATIVE

In the days when your brick-and-mortar local paper was one of the public’s only news sources, newspapers were built on subscribers. People had their paper delivered every day, already paid for; there was no question about whether or not they were going to buy the paper, the only question was what parts of the paper were they going to read? But in our current digital news landscape, profitability is entirely click-driven. In the good old days, the art of headline writing was always important, but your paper didn’t live or die by it. Now many online sources feel they have to resort to crafting headlines that trick you into clicking through.

Hello, my friends! This is Jas Hook. John Darling has graciously allowed me to use this space to write a guest piece this week. In case you missed the news, I got engaged! To a woman you K-Chron subscribers know well: Wendy Moira Angela Darling. So this week, I’m taking a moment to enumerate a few of the reasons why I asked her to marry me in the first place. I know that some of these reasons are a little cliché, but I think the reason something becomes a cliché is because it has an element of truth to it. So without further ado, I give you: The Top 5 Reasons I Love Wendy Darling.

Well JHMedia and the K-Chron have your back! OpenWindow is here, a place online where you can connect with other Neverlandians. Rate whether you want to open your window to them or close it! Those with Twitter accounts shared allow you to connect with them.

You can join up or just rate!

Click here to begin.

Neverlandians, by now you have no doubt heard that my father, George Darling, is stepping down from his position as editor-in-chief of the Kensington Chronicle. When Father made a deal with Mr. Hook to sell the paper to JH Media, we were assured that he would continue to run the day-to-day operations at the Chronicle, and that the paper would not be substantially changed going forward. But, from what little he’s told me about it, to all appearances my father’s resignation is a matter of creative differences between himself and the new management. That being the case, I can’t help the nagging suspicion that the winds are about to change here at our local paper, and quite possibly not for the better.

People of Neverland, Jas Hook here. My darling Wendy recently brought it to my attention that her family’s local newspaper has been floundering. This news kicked me back on my heels, and spurred me on to do something about it; not just because the Kensington Chronicle matters to Wendy but because it matters to me. I, too, read John’s editorials week in and week out, and take no small source of pleasure from Michael’s Dear Darling videos. What’s more, even though I’ve spent the better part of my life far from the town I first called home, an important part of my heart has always been in Neverland. For a long time, I was the only out-of-state subscriber to the Chronicle. Shipping a copy to New York on a daily basis is not the cheapest proposition in the world, but being the CEO of a massive global conglomerate like JH Media does occasionally have its privileges. Honestly, my advisors recommended against acquiring the Chronicle; “It doesn’t make any sense,” they told me, “Not from a financial standpoint.” Well, I’ll tell all of you exactly what I told them: JH Media is about more than just what makes “financial sense.”

Pop culture has done a lot to romanticize the notion of a captain going down with his ship. Now, that might be an honorable decision once you’ve gotten everybody to the lifeboats. But if your crew’s still onboard, it’s the captain’s duty to keep the ship afloat at all costs. Even if that means ceding control of your boat to someone better equipped to stay its course. Okay, let me back up for a minute, because this metaphor is getting unnecessarily dramatic.

George Darling here, longtime Editor in Chief and owner of the Kensington Chronicle, writing to explain why I’m not the paper’s owner anymore. As many of you have no doubt already heard, I recently sold the Kensington Chronicle to JH Media. After considering all the options, I found this to be the best one for everyone involved. But just because it was the right choice, the only choice, doesn’t make it any easier for me, or for my family. The Chronicle has been owned and operated by a Darling since my ancestor Kensington founded it in 1862, after all.