FROM THE

Happy Newspaper Week!

Rejoice journo nerds everywhere, it’s National Newspaper Week! The 81st annual National Newspaper Week is a recognition of newspapers’ service and their employees across North America.

Who cares, you might be thinking. Well, you should. And I’ll tell you why.

First off though, thank you to all of our loyal Journal readers for opening up our pages each week or clicking through our E-edition. We couldn’t do this without you.

It’s not a secret that newspapers across the country are facing tough times. Local papers, some more than 150 years old, have merged into others, leaving community coverage minimal at best, nonexistent at worst. Over the past 15-plus years, more than one in five United States newspapers has closed and the number of journalists has been cut in half, according to the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism. Many communities and counties, especially in rural areas, have been left without a local newspaper.

I’m thankful to work for a publisher and company that values local news, who is beating the odds. Again, thank you to our readers and advertisers.

City council and school board meetings. Small-town sports and the big Friday night game. Local government decisions and neighborhood crimes. Homecoming coronations and honor rolls. Tragic fires and triumphant stories of hope and hard work. What’s the new business in the old bank building? What happened to the local drycleaner?

Your local paper is your eyes and ears in the community, a mirror of your everyday lives. We help you stay informed about what is going on in your own backyards. We keep tabs on local government, hold elected officials accountable, honor local athletes, shine spotlights on theater productions, and more, all with the goal to entertain, protect, enrich and educate our readers.

Unless you have time to attend every village board, school board, county board, plan commission, city council meeting, how will you stay informed on decisions local boards are making that may affect you? We go to those meetings for you. How do you know where trustees and supervisors stand on hot local issues? We report what happens at meetings and how those decisions are made. Who the heck do I vote for? You can read about the candidates and make an informed decision.

Your local reporters are not strangers. We are your neighbors. We are your customers. We are your constituents. We are your friends. We live here too. We care about our communities as much as you do. That’s why it’s even more important to us to get things right and correct ourselves if we get it wrong. I don’t want to be in line at the grocery store and have some lambast me for a job poorly done.

The newspaper industry will no doubt continue to evolve and change and hopefully, we will evolve and change with it, providing you the local news you want to read. If there is a way we can improve, please let us know.

National Newspaper Week reminds us to honor our promise to report the news to readers as fairly and accurately as we can. To bring you the good stories and the bad. We hope it reminds you to support local journalism. Pierce County was close to joining the ranks of rural counties without a local paper. We hope you take this week to reflect on what local journalism means to you.

BY SARAH NIGBOR