Fairview E-News is an e-mail newsletter published Monday-Friday (and often Saturdays as well) about the goings-on in Fairview.
Dave Altman, publisher, has over a quarter-century experience in journalism, and first had the idea of a daily newsletter delivered electronically while working in Nowata in 1995. At that time, the delivery method of choice was the fax machine, but sending several hundred faxes would take too much time.
Then, in 2002, Altman decided to try the concept with e-mail. It took him six months to master the HTML language needed to construct the format. It took another three months to work out some of the Internet bugs, but with the help of IO2 Services and Gammastream, Fairview E-News was first commercially published July 1, 2003.
The idea behind a daily newsletter is simple, Things happen in any small town that people want and need to know about as soon as possible. The two most-asked questions in the coffee shops each morning are "Who died?" and "Who won the ballgame?" Fairview E-News tries to answer those questions.
Additionally, Altman tries to provide his subscribers with information that isn't easily available such as advance looks at the agendas of city council, school board, hospital board and Chamber of Commerce meetings.
Being Internet based, E-News is also able to give subscribers links to original documents and government reports such as state sales tax reports and statewide election results.
Altman started E-News from a spare bedroom at his house and still does most of his work there. But, he has opened a part-time office in Fairview I-Tower, where he works a couple of hours a day and all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
He also has a Web site (http://www.fairviewe-news.com) where people can see a sample of E-News and checkout some of the links. The most popular link is the community calendar at the bottom of the page. Anyone may submit events for that calendar by e-mailing Altman at dave@fairviewe-news.com.
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