Conor Friedersdorf spent the weekend in Staunton, Va., and read the local newspaper while there. He found it a bittersweet experience, mostly because the paper was just so exhausted:
I understand that small town newspapers being what they are, the most talented writers and reporters will leave for bigger cities and better paying, more widely read publications. But the columns above don't demonstrate a lack of talent -- they are written well enough -- so much as a lack of either effort or imagination. They are almost caricatures of what you'd expect to find in a small town newspaper. It's time to try something different.
I don't know if people have expected to see actual news in my hometown's newspaper, at least in decades. It's a shame, because just talking to my mom and dad for 20 minutes about what's going on around town brings more real news than anything you're likely to see in the local newspaper. During the 2000 election season, these folks in town started a community blog that became a red-hot read for its commentary on local elections. I compulsively read it, mostly because it provided a forum for the kind of commentary that should be bread and butter for any small-town paper. People actually talked about the real news in town.
Alas, there was an incredible amount of scurrilous and nasty personal attacks, nearly all made under the cloak of anonymity. In a small town, people would never have said those things, or said them in that same way, had they had to put their names to the remarks. Had the site been edited more closely, it could have been lively while not being irresponsible. I'm not sure why the site went away, but I was kind of glad it did, because I was afraid that the owners were setting themselves up for a defamation suit of some sort because of the things people said on it (bloggers typically know little or nothing about libel law). Still, a blogsite carrying lots of reader-written and generated commentary seems to me the inevitable replacement for traditional media in small towns. But they'll have to be reported, edited and written as a labor of love,because they won't make money.
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I'm in Gannett territory. Rumour not too long ago was that they were going to replace the local paper and the ones in the surrounding community with basically a stripped down USA Today and a single broadsheet of community news. I wish I had advice to give, but I'm in the uncomfortable boat of saying that there probably isn't a future for many local newspapers. (I think mine has a circulation of about 10-30,000.) Many of them should consider dropping their wire service subscriptions and writing on things they have reporters available to cover. If that means a simple sports page covering mostly local teams, then oh well.
I watched my not-so-small town newspapers ( Yes, we still have two!) shrink over the past five years to where I feel like I am lifting a piece of tissue when I grab it in the morning from the lawn. Ironically the only section that has increased in size is "Sports" . We've decided when the current subscription expires, that I will finally ( after 17 years ) end a daily newspaper subscription. I get everything on-line and since the local paper doesn't really cover the "local" news with any justice, what's the point?
we have a local weekly here and it's a real hoot if you wade through it. They put the police log and the court proceedings in with everyone's full name and address. So if you're a gossip you can keep track of which of your neighbors got caught speeding, had pot growing in the back yard or is being sued for not paying for that work they had done on the house. I'll also never forget the time they put in a picture of a beach ball in the street. The caption under it gave a lengthy explanation of the odd path it had taken down the street and in and out of people's driveways while being blown by the wind. I'm not sure what they were getting at, but I got a good laugh out of it. They also print blurbs from the paper going back 150 years. It's not exactly cutting edge, but I like it.
The only thing that's likely to save small town newspapers is actual lcal news. Who else is going to sit through the mind numbingly boring Catholic school board meeting at which they discuss whether they should allow third-graders to wear flip-flops or whether to do away with pluses and minuses in grading? I did. And I wrote about it for the next day's paper. And maybe no one cares except for the parents or the kids, but that kind of thing probably matters more to the people of my town than whatever happened across the country. If they want news on Iraq and Afghanistan or the latest political scandal they can get it faster and better on CNN or the Internet. I'm the only one who covered the Catholic school board meeting, which is why they put it on the front page. I never wanted to write for a big city newspaper. I hope the small town paper lasts and continues to pay, even if it's delivered via the Internet.
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