In the midst of much uncertainty in the world these days, Arlington received a gift this past week from a group of about 20 Buddhist monks who came through Arlington on their Walk For Peace. Their 2,300-mile journey started in Texas over three months ago. On the afternoon of Monday, February 9 the monks entered Arlington from Route 1 in Alexandria, walking through Arlington’s streets lined with spectators and well-wishers. I was fortunate to see them along Washington Boulevard, waiting patiently with others for the monks to make their way through Arlington. Not everyone knew about this march; I was standing next to someone who asked me, “what are we waiting for?” 

The monks turned right, onto Glebe Road, and spent the night at Marymount University. They left early on Tuesday morning, going down Glebe Road, and crossing over Chain Bridge. A Facebook feed came in handy, as one could watch them depart from the campus, and head down to the bridge.  My in-person and online observations were similar. There was no loud cheering; instead, there was a mood of quiet reverence, with some people offering flowers to the monks. The Tuesday morning crowd lining Glebe Road had a good number of young children along the route, as school had not yet started. It was touching to see one monk hand a flower to a young girl; the look on her face was precious. 

My intent for a column this week was to write about the challenges in accessing local news in this day and age of rapidly changing journalism. Increasingly, it seems to be more and more difficult to keep informed about local matters. This is not a new problem, but it certainly has been made more obvious when reflecting on the latest spate of firings at The Washington Post. While their coverage of local news had already dwindled over the years, the latest developments are especially discouraging. Every morning for decades I would read the Post, starting with its coverage of sports (from the professional to the high school level.) It looks like I need to find a new breakfast routine! 

The Walk For Peace, and its trek through Arlington, provides an opportunity for me to ask you a very specific question for your contemplation: through what news sources did you hear about the march? Or maybe you did not hear about it at all? I wrote an earlier column about the many ways that one can get information from the County. With the Walk For Peace, there was useful information provided by the County. But the quality and speed of getting information from the County depends on how many County “lists” you are signed up for. Much of the Walk For Peace information came to me from “word of mouth” news – such as Facebook posts and forwarded emails from friends, and other types of social media posts by various groups. 

A more general follow-up question for you is this: where do you get news about what is happening in our community life in the County?  Local print journalism in Arlington basically died with the demise of the weekly Gazette Leader in 2024. Scott McCaffrey, who spent 26 years as editor of the Sun Gazette newspaper chain, is now a reporter for the online news publication known as ARLnow. Scott wrote an article about the history of local print journalism in a February 5 article (which you can access on the ARLnow website). McCaffery included a lengthy list of news publications that covered Arlington over the past century. In a way, his article was a kind of obituary for print journalism in Arlington. 

As for today’s column, I am running out of room, so next week I will have to continue my exploration of suggested ways to access local news. If any of you have any recommendations, you can email me at historybillfogs@gmail.com. And I am happy to receive feedback as to the types of local news you would like to see. I have some opinions on all that — but I will wait till next week to reveal the three things I would like to see.