WE’LL JUST CALL IT what it is. This is the Navel-Gazing edition of The Record.

I’m not proud of that, but we have made the news, and we are determined to give and its staff the same treatment we would any other newsmakers—good, bad and otherwise. Frankly, we’ve run the table this week.

These are things our readers and the public need to know, and that is the standard on which we have based our reporting for the last 30-plus years.

In the last few tumultuous weeks, The Record owners and staff have diligently prepared for the sale of this newspaper to a prospective buyer, before finally opting out of the sale altogether last Wednesday. That decision was preceded by a series of delayed contract signings and requests by the buyer for key changes to the contract, which we ultimately rejected.

The outcome was both unexpected and quite frankly, a relief. The sale was not meant to be.

However, it has left us in the difficult position of deciding what this newspaper’s ultimate fate will be. After three decades and counting under our ownership, we are thirty-years older, thirty- years wiser, and thirty-years more tired. We cannot continue to work at the pace we have, or to shelve our personal lives to meet the demands of this community newspaper that we love.

Our efforts to sell The Record are widely known here. We have shared our intentions with our readers, and invited their interest and their consideration in a series of columns and fullpage ads. We have also been honored by their insistence that we should not and cannot quit, though as each day goes by, it has become more apparent that we should and we must.

In the midst of chaos and change last week, we learned that The Canadian Record, Inc., and its publisher, Laurie Ezzell Brown, were among seven others named in a defamation lawsuit that is expected to be filed this week by the family of Thomas Brown, whose tragic disappearance and death have been accurately, fairly and thoroughly covered in these pages for over six years now.

We were not surprised by that news. Philip Klein, the private investigator hired by Brown’s family, has been beating the lawsuit drum for weeks on social media.

Neither are we concerned that the charge of defamation has any merit. We will challenge it, request immediate dismissal of its baseless claims, and if denied, will fight it with every resource available to us.

If defamation has indeed occurred—and we believe it has—its real victims are the members of this community and those who have challenged

Mr. Klein’s frequent lies, misdirection, accusations and self-serving pronouncements on behalf of and at the behest of the Brown/ Meek family. The truth has taken a real beating.

Though tempted to comment further, we will not. Not here. Not now. Not today.

News of the lawsuit followed our difficult decision at midweek to walk away from the sale, and coincided not only with our usual weekly deadline and publication of last week’s Record, but also with a perilous and exhausting trip by myself and my dearest friends and co-owners, Mary Smithee and Cathy Ricketts, to Missoula, Montana.

Fleeing town? Not really. Stumbling out of town, perhaps. We headed west to see the premiere of a documentary film, For The Record, which opened at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival on Saturday. The film features the story of The Canadian Record, which has been documented by filmmaker Heather Courtney over the last five years.

You can learn more about that event in a report on page 5, but let us preface it with this: While we prefer being on the business end of the news, and safely on the other side of the camera, it was our greatest honor to be chosen by Heather as the subject of this film, which tells an essential and timely story about the importance of rural community journalism, the role it plays in a healthy democracy, and the perils it now faces in a culture more attuned to instant information, social media and carefully-curated facts.

The film’s message is one we value and will continue to amplify in our daily lives.

I’ve been accused recently, by journalists I admire, of burying the lede, which is journalese for placing the emphasis on the least important point of the story. I guess I am guilty. For what it’s worth, I’m kicking the dirt right now, trying to muster the courage to deliver the real lede. At the risk of appearing to concede defeat, which we do not, my staff and I have agreed to suspend publication of The Record following our Thursday, March 9, edition. This will allow us time to notify our readers and subscribers and advertisers, to continue to seek a new owner for this newspaper, and to fight a toxic lawsuit meant to impugn the reputation of this newspaper and its publisher.

We have arrived at this decision with great difficulty, having tried for at least the last two years to find someone who will take over this job. There is no way to adequately express our sadness in closing these doors. We can only assure you that we have chased every lead, walked down every dead end, and knocked on every door in an attempt to find an alternative to quitting.

I was recently accused by one reader of being unwilling to sell The Record to anyone who wasn’t a Democrat. I asked why she thought that. Her response, and I paraphrase, “Because of what you wrote in your ad.” What was that, I asked? “Well, you said you wanted to find someone who cares as much about this community as you do.”

There really is no good response to that… except I’m still fairly certain that there must be a Republican—or a Democrat—somewhere in this community, this state, or this country, who might just be able to care as much about Canadian as we do. If so, give me a call: 806.570.3033.