The newspaper is published as two newspapers (same content, different mastheads). The Derrick, as the name hints, goes back to the days of the oil boom in Western Pennsylvania. The News-Herald is the fusion of two newspapers that merged a little over a century ago. A few decades ago, they were combined into one news operation. Like many other news outlets, they also entered the online world, experimenting with different versions of paywalls. They were about to be sold, but that deal fell through, and the company, citing the usual (drop in subscribers, drop in advertisers). The last issue will be published on March 20.
It is hard to describe just what a gut punch this is to the community. The newspaper is where people read about local sports, school board meetings, city council meetings, obituaries, and a wealth of stories about local people and activities. The newspaper has been doing just what a small local paper needs to do-- providing news and coverage that local folks couldn't find anywhere else.
Will someone pick up that slack? There are no radio stations with local content. We are located about halfway between Erie and Pittsburgh (which has newspaper problems of their own), too far outside their media markets for them to bother with coverage of our area. We have a local county-level web site that so far has had about one reporter, and has depended on looking over the newspaper's shoulder for much of its content. They are now advertising an initiative to scale up, but that's going to involve creating basically a whole news organization from scratch.
For local organizations and government bodies looking to communicate with the community, the prospects are now much dimmer than ever.
The newspaper was our newspaper of record. Who lived here? What did they do? What were their stories? All of that was set down in print. Now what will become of all those stories of all those lives? How will history be recorded? Will history be recorded? A big city may have other avenues for creating those sorts of records. We do not.
The loss feels very personal. Pieces of my own history are in that record. A photo of my family when we moved to town. High school graduation stories. Pictures of my kids in local events. My father's obituary ran in the newspaper; when my mother passes, where will that life be noted?
And, as longtime readers may recall, I have written a weekly column for that newspaper for almost 28 years. The pay was--well, I don't think cutting my pay would have saved the paper-- but the chance to create something that added to a unique local flavor gave me a sense of giving a tiny something to my community. And the writing discipline required to meet a weekly deadline has shaped who I became as a writer and a teacher. It's a big chunk of my life to say goodbye to.
Journalism has always relied on a problematic business model ("We will gather a crowd and sell you access to their eyeballs") married to a sense of civic responsibility with an occasional too-large helping of political opportunism ("You provide the pictures and I'll provide the war"). I wonder, too, about the effects of our economic split-- particularly the finding that the wealthiest 10% drives 50% of the spending. What does that mean for areas like mine where the wealthiest 10% don't live?
Our new situation is already the situation of many communities across the country, news desserts now lacking one of the main sources of glue that holds a community together. People make a lot of noise about how journalism is important for keeping an eye on officials and bringing to light shenanigans and misbehavior, but local journalism is also hugely important for telling and sharing the stories of the people share community with. The small triumphs, the minor milestones, the rich and varied stories, the slow unrolling of history, and all the other part of the small town narrative that the AP is never going to pick up-- that's what we lose.
Instead we're left with the sloppy ephemera of facebook gossip and other social media baloney. It sucks.
I am sad for all the people who are losing their jobs and all the stories that now will not be told and the huge gap this will create in my county. This is terrible news; ironically, it may be the last terrible news that the newspaper reports.
No comments:
Post a Comment