Janie Slaven: This week is special for more than one reason

Oct. 4—It's Dessert Week in Corbin — a new food-centric event that we at the Times-Tribune are proud to inform our readers about.

We're celebrating the week for another important reason as well.

This 82nd annual National Newspaper Week, sponsored by Newspaper Association Managers, is a recognition of the service of newspapers and their employees throughout the United States and Canada provide to the public.

In an increasingly digital age, newspapers have never been more relevant. We cover a wide variety of "hard news" stories as well as the community features that our important to our readers. As digital platforms evolve, we too are incorporating websites, apps, social media channels and newsletters along with our traditional newspaper to deliver the news in an accurate and swift manner.

Our trustworthiness appears to be growing.

In March, the National Newspapers Association and NNA Foundation commissioned a survey of readers from across the country, conducted by the Susquehanna Polling and Research team.

That study found local newspapers as the most trusted source when it comes to learning about candidates for public office.

On a 10-point scale (with 10 being the "highest"), local newspapers are rated a 7.38, higher than TV stations (6.45), radio (5.58), political mailings (4.63) or social media platforms (2.65).

The results are up from the NNA's 2019 study, when on the issue of trustworthiness, community newspapers as a more trusted news source scored 5.77 on the 10-point scale.

Personally I would like to see an even higher score, and I hope our readers would agree. The people who work at local newspapers are very much part of their respective communities. The issues that are important to our readers are important to us as well.

Janie Slaven is the editor of the Times-Tribune. She can be reached at jslaven@thetimestribune.com