At the Westfield Leader editors and writers are challenged to: 'create the best, professional "above the fold" local content for [their] readers'. The Leader and Times is a publisher of unique content; they separate the various elements of daily life with critical sources of information and then publish that for consumption by the general public.
The company was established in 1890 by a local family business, it has remained true to those roots for the entire of its history. As the legal newspaper proprieters for Union County, New Jersey, encompassing many towns and communities, the paper has held a strong responsibility to its readers. In their words:
We employ a dedicated core staff and are supported by scores of talented, local people. By this, for over a century, our readers view us with integrity and trust. We earn this expectation each week.
We promote good government, active campaigning and informing voters. Generally, we do not endorse candidates. We offer elected officials and candidates the opportunity to address our readers each week on the issues."
We cherish and solicit your views. We support freedom of speech and confirm all letters by calling the authors. Letters are reviewed for libel, bad taste, commercialism, negative campaign rhetoric, falsehoods and errors.
The Westfield Leader and Perl
The Westfield Leader has been using Perl for more than a decade (since 1998), providing many essential functions. Over time they have received considerable learning help from the Perl community.
They are privately owned weekly newspapers in Westfield, NJ since 1890. Perl contributed to helping us digitize all of the archives, which run as far back as 1907, and they are now searchable on the Internet.
Perl provides point in time backup (20 minutes) for the composing of files during press time production by editorial staff.
Sometimes a file may crash on our LAN during deadline and this saves the day.
Utilising Perl and rsync, they backup business data, sales data and production data for local archival, then sync this to a remote location that also runs using Perl and Debian servers.
Go Leader use a number of cgi scripts online help us conduct business with our advertisers and subscribers. The full database management of 10,000 paid subscribers, management and renewals which can be done online, by mail, and by phone is done with the help of Perl.
Almost all Perl things that are performed are custom designs tailored specifically to match internal business requirements. The team are almost entirely self taught and they have automate a great number of their business processes.
Perl and Debian servers with Windows workstations have enabled them to perform many things that otherwise would be financially impossible as well as challenging if at all possible with commercial, or off-the-shelf, software.
Out of gratitude, they recently contributed to the Perl 6 team for a new server. The Leader share some wonderful words aimed at the Perl community that they have grown very fond of and enjoy being a member of:
I'm writing you of this in hopes of inspiring others. We are not professional programmers but are able to succeed nevertheless. Thank you all.
The Westfield Leader and The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Times newspaper office is located at 251 North Avenue, West, Westfield, NJ. You are invited you to visit us.
The Westfield Leader & The Scotch Plains-Fanwood TIMES
PO Box 250, 251 North Ave. West, Westfield, NJ 07091
Tel: 908 232-4407
Fax: 908 232-0473
Email: press@goleader.com
Copyright 2015
Web: www.goleader.com
