A Letter from the Founder
I started this paper because I kept running into the same problem: something would be happening in Westphalia, a new development going in, a road pattern changing, a business closing its doors, and there was nowhere to actually find out about it. Not really. A post in a Facebook group here, a county notice buried on a website there, a rumor passed along by a neighbor. Nothing that stuck around. Nothing that followed up.
So we built one.
The Westphalia Gazette exists to answer a simple question, consistently: what is happening in Westphalia? Not Prince George's County broadly, not Upper Marlboro as a whole, this neighborhood, specifically, closely, and over time. A regional paper might run one story about a project near your street and move on to the next headline. We plan to still be asking about it six months later, and the six months after that.
That kind of attention doesn't come from a masthead. It comes from paying attention to one place long enough to notice when something changes, and caring enough to explain why it matters.
What we'll cover first
We're launching around five areas: Development, Traffic & Transportation, Local News, Business, and Community. In the coming weeks, expect coverage of the projects currently moving through county review near Westphalia, what's changing on the roads residents use every day, which businesses are opening around the town center, and the community events and everyday life that don't make it into anyone else's paper.
We're not going to just repost press releases. For every story, the standard is the same: what happened, how do we know, why does it matter here, and what happens next. We'll use primary sources where we can, say clearly when something is opinion versus reporting, credit other outlets when we build on their work, and correct ourselves openly when we get something wrong. When we don't know something yet, we'll say that too.
How to help
This paper works better with more eyes on the neighborhood, not fewer. If you see something worth looking into, a permit posted, a new sign in a storefront window, a change on your commute nobody's explained, tell us. Every tip gets reviewed and verified before it becomes a story, but the tip is often where a story starts.
Send a Tip: tips@westphaliagazette.com
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