One man’s opinion: Why we still need newspapers

Growing up in a newspaper family and running a newspaper route with a neighborhood buddy for the AJC as one of my first jobs, I will admit that 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 Atlanta Journal, owner/editor and publisher of The Crier of Dunwoody and decades-long host of “The Georgia Gang” on Fox 5 Atlanta, often said that the best newspapers must be their community’s BIGGEST cheerleader and when needed, harshest critic. He was right, though that is admittedly a tough balancing act.

Though newspapers may survive online, in email newsletters and other platforms, this 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 the Generation Z members who may never see their picture from the local newspaper sports section of a big game win, or their wedding/engagement photos, or a detailed obituary of a leading citizen and the contributions they made pinned by a magnet to the kitchen refrigerator.

The family pouring over the different sections of a fat Sunday paper is also soon gone with the wind. 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 other profession do…

But I don’t have enough words in my weekly column to list the thousands of instances where solid reporting has uncovered corporate greed or larceny, government waste or embezzlement, resulting in the correction of errors or the making whole of a consumer or enterprise earlier treated wrongly by an errant individual or business.

Those numbers are decidedly HIGHER than the instances of ‘Fake News’ which in and of itself tends to be overstated.

Graduating with a degree in broadcast journalism from the Grady College of Journalism at UGA, generally one of the better-regarded journalism schools in the country, I have worked in and around journalists for more than four decades.

The majority are underpaid, often overworked and generally skeptical of authority. Part of the jobs of the Fourth and Fifth Estates are to question and bring truth to power. But asking even a tough question is still not illegal and often illuminating in simply watching the reaction of seemingly increasingly thin-skinned corporate and public government officials, uncomfortable with having to be accountable to anyone.

If they are available in print, I will have several papers hitting my driveway and front porch each week. Some, like the AJC, will only exist 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. 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 the good and bad decisions by local government officials, highlights of Friday Night Lights and big events and festivals, is hard to replace with Facebook, Instagram, and other social media outlets.

Times have changed, and many advertisers have migrated elsewhere, but like public radio at present, reeling from the loss of support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal/congressional funding, is expanding its corporate partnerships and listener memberships.

Big city dailies, except for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, may be gone soon 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.

It still isn’t too late for your local paper, and so if you feel even to a small degree as I do: subscribe, occasionally advertise, or give the gift of a subscription to a neighbor, older family member, or your local school library. I can assure you that each of those gift recipients will appreciate that gift, even if you don’t anymore.

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