Why your local paper is still relevant
We are living in an unprecedented period as a newspaper. In times like this with the world at our fingerprint with the www and social media, people will ask why the newspaper is still important to a community. Honestly, it is a good question that should be explored; especially in this hour.
Thomas Jefferson once said: “The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.”
We currently live in the digital age where there is so much information at the tip of anyone’s finger at any given time. That said never before can the common layperson post their thoughts, information can quickly be posted and given away for free with very little restrictions. Truly we are in a golden age for information and media.
Unfortunately, much of what we get with unlimited access is fool’s gold. Anyone who has a Facebook account truly knows this to be true, as political pundits, special interest groups and misled individuals pass around memes and posts that are not only wrong gut flat out lies. This has been so much the case that websites started popping up to fight false information and urban legends that have been disseminated through the internet. However, it has become so bad that the fact check websites have to be fact-checked to validate the truth of their claims. President Donald Trump popularized the idea of calling it “fake news”.
In the background, your hometown newspapers continue to live on. Both the Cass County Sun and the Atlanta Citizens Journal are the Newspaper of Record for Cass County. What makes the newspaper different from Facebook or other forms of media is that we are not only a means to communicate information, but we are also a historical document that is cataloged and saved for years to come. For that reason, we must document everything clearly and accurately.
Because we are seen as the statistically proven, most trustworthy form of media when we utilize other forms of media like Facebook and our website people trust us. Our reporters work hard not to just post just any piece of information. We have to give factually correct information. Other forms of media can either ignore their mistakes simply by announcing the correct information after they have been broadcasting the wrong information. We cannot. We will not.
Currently, we statically reach about 4,500 readers through our newspaper; we have a combined 10k people though our two Facebook pages and several thousand through our website and e-edition. Since we have a large demographic of elderly people who read our paper. It is essential that we get our local people correct; timely and accurate information since these are the very people that are potentially the most at risk in our current crisis.
Truly the hometown newspaper is not only needed but essential. Facebook may be great for getting information relayed by your friends, but they are not at the city council meetings or county courts helping keep your county officials in check and giving you vital information. It should also be noted that today’s Facebook is not the same as it was a few years back.
Their current algorithm makes it harder to get the word out to your friends and family through a general post. Many of your posts now are only shown to just a few people. Your important information to the community may never be seen unless you are looking for it.
We have reporters whose job it is to investigate the whole story not just report the blurb or press release, but rather to find out information behind the scenes that give the public the information they need to know. Our journalists also report and catalog your local news, with your kids and your community that will be memorialized long after Facebook is the new Myspace and has lost its relevance. Truly that is the job of the local newspaper.
Some will say in this time that the newspaper is dying. I would say, if that is the case, we better figure out how to revive it. The truth is many will not know it has even been missing until they have no town history to look back on and their government is running amuck with no checks or balances.
Could you imagine what your local bureaucrats could do with your tax money unchecked! Thomas Jefferson’s point was that if he had to choose between the Newspaper and the Government he would choose the newspaper because it protects the people from Tyranny and tells people the full, real story.