My Turn: National Newspaper Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you notice something different about your newspaper today? The space above is intentionally blank to ask our readers to think about this question: 

What if your local newspaper suddenly disappeared? 

This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. Since 2005, nearly 3,000 local newspapers have closed across the United States, resulting in the loss of over 43,000 journalism jobs. These numbers paint a grim picture of what communities could face without their trusted, local news outlets: a lack of information (or worse, social media gossip), less government accountability, and a loss of community identity. 

Local newspapers have served as the cornerstone of towns and cities for decades— sometimes for over a century—documenting everything from major community events to personal milestones like births, obituaries, and accomplishments, and feature stories about your neighbors—the real people you know, not influencers or strangers miles away. 

Newspapers are the living, breathing history of your community, updated weekly, and preserved in a way that won’t be erased when a server crashes or a social media site goes dark. Other than talking to someone who actually lived through a community event, newspapers are the best way to connect with your community’s history. 

Local newspapers are accessible to anyone, regardless of technological access or digital literacy. The news is right there, in print, in your hands. You don’t need to Google search or scroll through dozens of pages of online search results. This is especially true for all types of public notices, like election ballots, constitutional amendments, bid solicitations and court-related notices. After all, if you don’t know about them, why would you go to an obscure government website to look for them? In a newspaper, they’re right in front of you. 

Digital news comes with many drawbacks. The rise of social media platforms and online news has changed how people consume information. Algorithms decide what you’ll see based on your clicks, likes, or shares, not on what’s most relevant or essential to your community. As a result, you might miss crucial local updates simply because they didn’t generate enough engagement online. Another serious problem is that by relying on these algorithms, readers can fall victim an “echo chamber” effect, where they are only served stories that match their existing views. 

People crave human connection, not another algorithm telling them what to think. 

Social media and big tech companies like Facebook (Meta) and Google control most of the advertising dollars spent nationally. They grew their businesses sharing news, while never compensating the newspapers that did the work. Too many people think they’ll just advertise their event on Facebook, because it’s free, and then they are surprised when no one sees it. On average, less than 10 percent (some sources say as low as 2.2 percent) of your friends or followers will ever see your post, unless of course, you spend money to promote it. 

Again, the algorithm choses who sees what. 

Local radio and television are better, but how much local news do you see on TV in northeast Missouri? Sports highlights and 45 second stories. Radio is better still, but they are still restricted on time in their news breaks. And most of them those news outlets are owned by out-of-state corporations who have no real interest in your community. 

Local newspapers can give you the whole picture. For example, our newspapers have given in-depth coverage to several school bond issues in the past few years. We’ve shown our readers the infrastructure problems in the schools, and explained how it impacts both student learning and student safety, the plans to fix it, and how much it will cost. Often, these stories were spread out over the weeks prior to an election, so local voters could make informed decisions. 

I could go on, but you get the idea. 

But Mike, newspapers are dying. 

Wrong. Newspapers are adapting. We’re growing with the challenges we face. We need to focus this discussion on the word “news” instead of the word “paper”. Our commitment is to provide accurate, local news that’s important to our communities, along with feature stories, community event coverage, sports and whatever else happening, and to present it to our readers-in the format they want. Some of you are digital readers. Some of you like holding the printed paper. We want to meet you where you are, and deliver best local news coverage possible to you. 

What’s next for us? Who knows. But with your support, we’re going to continue to adapt and serve our communities. 

How can you help? The obvious answers are to become a subscriber or buy an advertisement, but there’s more than that: 

-Tell others about what you see in the paper. Let them know local news isn’t dead. 

-Let us know what you want to see in the paper. We want to know what you want. 

-Let us know when something is happening. We can’t be everywhere, all the time. 

-Shop local whenever possible, and encourage local businesses to advertise with us. 

This National Newspaper Week, I want to thank all of our dedicated employees for the great work they do keeping our communities informed. And, as always, thank you for reading and supporting your local newspaper. –Mike