It is National Newspaper Week, a good time to stop and think about something many of us may take for granted – having a newspaper that belongs to the community.
In an age when news can be found instantly on a phone, social media or the internet, some may wonder why a printed community newspaper is still important. The answer is simple: because local journalism is about more than delivering news. It is about preserving a community’s story.
A community newspaper goes places the national media doesn’t. We attend the school board meetings, city council meetings, county board meetings and public hearings. We sit in the bleachers and along the sidelines. We report on local businesses, farm families, community celebrations, fundraisers, elections, achievements and, yes, sometimes the disagreements that come with living in a community.
We know the names. That matters.
When a student earns an award, a team wins a championship, a longtime resident celebrates a milestone birthday, a business reaches an anniversary or a local organization raises money for someone in need, those stories deserve to be told. They are the little pieces that make up the larger story of who we are.
And there is something special about seeing those stories in print.
A newspaper can be saved. It can be clipped out and put into a scrapbook. Years from now, someone can open an old edition and discover what happened in their hometown on a particular week. The newspaper becomes a record of our community – its people, its accomplishments, its challenges and its history.
But community journalism also carries an important responsibility.
A local newspaper serves as another set of eyes on local government. It asks questions. It reports what elected officials are doing with taxpayer dollars. It gives candidates an opportunity to explain their positions. It helps residents understand issues that directly affect their lives.
That isn’t about being for or against someone.
It is about keeping the community informed.
A healthy community needs informed citizens, and informed citizens need reliable local information.
Social media can spread information quickly, but it can also spread rumors, opinions and misinformation just as quickly. Community journalism has a different responsibility. We are expected to check the facts, provide context and tell the story fairly.
That work takes time and it costs money.
This is where the community itself becomes part of the equation. If we want a local newspaper to survive, it cannot be supported by the publisher alone. It takes readers who subscribe, businesses that advertise and community members who recognize the value of having a local source of news and are willing to support it.
We often hear people say, “We don’t know what we’d do without our newspaper.”
National Newspaper Week is a good time to turn those words into action. Subscribe if you don’t already. Renew your subscription. Support the businesses that advertise in the newspaper. Tell them you appreciate their support of local journalism. Share the newspaper with a friend or neighbor. And when you see something worth covering, let us know.
A newspaper isn’t just something you receive in the mail or pick up at the store.
It is your community’s record.
We may own and publish the newspaper, but the stories belong to all of us. They belong to the people who live here, work here, raise their families here, volunteer here and care about what happens here.
Community newspapers have survived wars, economic downturns, changing technology and countless predictions that print journalism was going away.
We believe there is still a place for the printed newspaper because there is still a need for community.
So during National Newspaper Week, we ask you to do something simple: Support your local newspaper.
Read it. Subscribe to it. Advertise in it. Contribute to it. Talk about it. Because when a community loses its newspaper, it doesn’t just lose a publication.
It loses one of the places where its history is recorded, its accomplishments are celebrated, its leaders are held accountable and its people are connected. And that is something worth preserving.