Growing up in a newspaper family and running a newspaper route with a neighborhood buddy for the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution as one of my first jobs, I will admit I have a sentimental as well as logical attachment to the need for local newspapers and their importance in communities large and small.
A longtime friend and colleague in this industry, Dick Williams, an opinion columnist for the AJC, owner/ editor and publisher of The Crier of Dunwoody, and decades-long host of “The Georgia Gang” on Fox 5 Atlanta, often said the best newspapers must be their community’s biggest cheerleader, but when needed, their harshest critic.
He was right, of course, though that’s admittedly a tough balancing act.
And though newspapers may survive online in email newsletters and other platforms, losing a printed newspaper is not as simple as saying goodbye to the buggy whip or moving to a superior platform like email or text over the fax machine.
I already feel bad for those Gen Z members who may never see their picture in the local sports section after a big game win, or their wedding/engagement photos in print, or a detailed obituary of a leading citizen and the contributions they made pinned by a magnet to the kitchen refrigerator.
But most of all, this declining view of the importance of shared community news also allows us to drift further apart.
I don’t absolve or excuse any of the bias or incomplete reporting by larger legacy news outlets.
Leaning in favor or either party or skewing facts to match an agenda, or approaching a story with a predetermined angle, hero and villain, are all wrong.
Reporters also make mistakes, just as people in every profession do. But I don’t have enough space in my weekly column to list the thousands of instances where solid reporting has uncovered corporate greed or larceny, government waste or embezzlement, or resulted in a correction of errors, or making whole of a consumer or enterprise treated wrongly by an errant individual or business.
Those numbers are decidedly higher than the instances of so-called “fake news,” which in and of itself tends to be overstated.
If they are available in print, I will have several papers hitting my driveway and front porch each week. Some, like the AJC, will exist only online by the end of this year. I will still subscribe but hope that improvements are made to most websites to make them more intuitive or user friendly. To that end, let’s start with having search engines that actually work!
But losing that common source of community news and outlooks, calendar of events, coverage of good and bad decisions by local government officials, highlights of Friday Night Lights, and big events and festivals, will be hard to replace through Facebook, Instagram, and other social media outlets. Big city dailies, excepting perhaps the likes of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, may soon be gone as we know them, though most will continue in existence online. I applaud the AJC for announcing its plans to carry a PDF version, as if still printing the paper, largely as a convenience for generations of readers still used to consuming their product in that fashion.
If you’re reading this in print, it still isn’t too late for your local paper, so if you feel even to a small degree as I do, subscribe, advertise, or give the gift of a print subscription to a neighbor, older family member, or even your local school library.
I can assure you that each of those recipients will appreciate the gift and you’ll be doing your part to help preserve the printed word.