Why communities need local newspapers

In the fall of 2010, a woman stopped me in the grocery store to introduce herself. I was a reporter at the Petoskey News-Review at the time, and she recognized me from my headshot in the paper.

“Thank you for bringing the Mackinac Island ferry issue to light,” she told me.

I had recently started covering the island’s city council meetings as they debated making ferry service to the island a monopoly by refusing operating licenses for two of the three ferry companies. The woman told me I should look into one angle of the story and in turn, because of her tip, the story became a year’s worth of headlines closely followed by readers.

During the summer of 2018, a person who wanted remain anonymous called the Petoskey News-Review. This person told then executive editor, Jeremy McBain, that Michigan State House Rep. Lee Chatfield (R-Pellston) had been involved in an incident at the Pellston Airport. Chatfield had brought a loaded, unregistered, handgun that he tried to get through security.

Several times during my years at the News-Review, I had a source who would regularly call me or come into the office to tell me about things going on with a governing body outside its public meetings. Investigations stemming from these tips led to numerous news stories that informed the public not only that their elected officials were doing questionable things, but also how their tax money was being spent.

I know many people who think small newspapers don’t matter, that they can get their news from other sources. However, as someone who has worked in both television and newspaper newsrooms, I can tell you from my experience that most news you see on television news was first done by journalists at newspapers.

Newspapers don’t just bring you the day’s news. They root out stories in the community that other outlets don’t have the time or resources to touch. And with more local newspapers being sold, cutting staff and shutting down, it leaves a void for local residents to learn about what’s happening in their own communities.

Your local newspaper is also the place where you’d go to find local notices, whether it’s for public meetings, hearings, property issues or ordinance changes. These notices are required to be published by the state.

Local newspapers are the place you go to publish or read obituaries, to see photos of your child’s class during the holiday concert or find out what the score was of last night’s high school athletic event.

I absolutely loved my tenure as a News-Review reporter and editor. I loved reporting the news in a small community where everything and everyone seem to be connected in some way. I loved being able to put photos of your kids in the paper and hearing about their excitement when they saw their picture hang on the family’s refrigerator. I loved telling the feel-good stories that I know people still remember today because some of you still email me about them.

But thinking about how much the industry is changing and its impact on local communities worries me.

The United States has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005, according to the Associated Press. In addition, newspapers are closing at a rapid pace. It’s estimated that by the end of this year, 3,000 newspapers will have closed over the last two decades.

When local newsrooms are gutted or close, jobs, accountability and community connection are all lost. And in turn, spurious information runs rampant and it becomes incredibly difficult to tell truth from fiction. Stories go untold, there are fewer eyes and ears holding elected officials accountable and important community issues can fall through the cracks.

And that terrifies me. It should terrify you, too.

— Rachel Brougham is the former assistant editor of the Petoskey News-Review. You can email her at racheldbrougham@gmail.com .

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Why communities need local newspapers