Column: Fond du Lac Reporter editor bids farewell with a reminder of how important trust in local news is
Dear readers,
It has been a wonderful — if shorter than planned — journey.
If you haven’t seen, I will be moving into a regional editing role with the Appleton Post-Crescent. It’s an exciting opportunity for me, but it also fills me with sadness to leave this position in this community.
Thank you for welcoming me into Fond du Lac when I was promoted from Oshkosh Streetwise reporter to editor of the Fond du Lac Reporter and Oshkosh Northwestern in August.
I didn’t get to stay long, but in that short time I was able to connect with so many business and community leaders, from reading at Marian University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration to attending the Fond du Lac Young Professionals’ Breakfast With Champions, and I can easily sum up the welcome I received at both events: heartfelt and kind.
There are many reasons we choose to become journalists (money and fame not among them), but for me the constant has been the gratifying sense of community connections, telling untold stories and getting to know the people who make our community’s heart beat. It’s what I missed most when I left the industry briefly in 2019, and what urged me to return when I accepted the Oshkosh Streetwise position in June 2021.
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It started as a personal mission, but I’ve realized in the last two years that it should be the mission of journalists everywhere: Building trust and fostering relationships with readers has never been more important to news publications, a pillar of democracy.
When I joined the staff here, I felt the divide between our newsroom and the community we aim to serve. It was deep, and your distrust was not misplaced: As a corporate-owned newspaper that has seen staff cuts and lost resources, the local coverage you had come to expect from your local paper no longer met your expectations.
I understood that, and I tried in small ways to start building that trust, by showing up for events and trying to get more local news into our paper, both digitally and in print.
There’s still a long way to go, but I’m hopeful Brandon Reid, the Reporter’s new editor, can help lead us there.
Gannett has also introduced a new Center for Community Journalism, which separates about 150 daily newspapers, including Fond du Lac, and some weekly newsrooms under their own leadership and planning structure to provide support for journalists covering these communities, helping reporters focus on hyper-local, high-impact stories.
The center is just getting started, but I am hopeful when it is fully implemented that it will return the local coverage to you, dear readers, that you deserve and that a thriving democracy depends on.
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But, in the words of Tigger, “TTFN” — or, “ta ta for now.” My new role as a regional editor is still being finalized, but I will stay in touch with Fond du Lac as part of our Fox Valley coverage, making sure it extends all the way down Lake Winnebago.
Thank you for taking the time to read the Fond du Lac Reporter — whether it is following our election coverage, keeping up with Daphne Lemke’s business coverage or picking up an old-fashioned, hard copy of a newspaper at any time over the last nearly two years.
The journalism industry is still navigating this new digital landscape, but please don’t give up on local news; it has never been more important.
Katy Macek is the former editor of the Fond du Lac Reporter and currently a regional editor for the Appleton Post-Crescent. She can be reached at kmacek@gannett.com or on Twitter at @KatherineMacek.
This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Column: Fond du Lac Reporter editor bids farewell, support of local news
