This week marks 88 years of weekly publication for this newspaper. The first issue of the paper, then called the Cooperator, was published on November 24, 1937. We have been publishing without fail ever since, becoming the Greenbelt News Review in 1954.
The excerpt below from that first issue lays out in detail what the paper’s founders believed it would take to produce a quality newspaper. What they wrote is still relevant today as we enter our 89th year.
A Good Newspaper
Greenbelt Cooperator, Vol. 1, No. 1:
“A good newspaper is an adjunct of self-government; it is the keystone in the arch of American liberty. The town meeting and the town weekly are joint partners in maintaining order, stability, progress and sanity in any modern community.
It is therefore natural to ask what policy the Greenbelt Cooperator has in view; what its relation is toward the community. The sphere of the Cooperator and its policies may be summarized within an eight-point* outline as follows:
1. To serve as a nonprofit enterprise.
2. To remain nonpartisan in politics.
3. To remain neutral in religious matters.
4. To print news accurately and regularly.
5. To make its pages an open forum for civic affairs.
6. To develop a staff of volunteer writers.
7. To create a “Good Neighbor” spirit, promote friendship, advance the common good and develop a “Greenbelt philosophy” of life.
These are the broad general principles and policies which will guide the staff and editorial writers, from week to week and year to year – we hope. If this program, platform or policy is worthy of support, the Cooperator will become a valuable medium in the development of Greenbelt and its environs.”
*Our editors in 2025 note that that first newspaper needed a proofreader, as there are only seven points listed, not eight.
