Letter: Communities need local newspapers. What will it take to keep them going?
As local newspapers continue to downsize, I wonder how long they will be available in any form. But perhaps there is hope.
An article in the March/April issue of Yankee Magazine detailed a trend in New England that has been successful in keeping a number of newspapers operating.
Phil Camp, of Woodstock, Vermont, ski industry success story, purchased his hometown paper, The Vermont Standard, and subsidizes it with a cash infusion of approximately $3,000 a week. Camp notes, “This town made me what I am. . . . This is my small way of saying thanks.”
Retired district court Judge Fred Rutberg and friends bought The Berkshire Eagle in Massachusetts back from Digital First Media, which had stripped it, to restore quality content.
Keeping papers alive — and making profits — is a passion for Reade Brower, owner of Maine Today Media, a local conglomerate which operates The Portland Press Herald in Maine, in addition to smaller publications.
Nonprofit papers, staffed by student journalists, have sprung up in some communities where papers closed. Readers have even donated extra cash to keep endangered papers in print.
Could such actions happen here? Perhaps citizens with financial resources and an understanding of quality publishing could step up to form local nonprofits or locally-based for-profit conglomerates, sparing papers from the ax of distant owners with no interest in local communities. Concerned readers could make modest donations.
Many claim to obtain news via social media sites. But most social media outlets don’t provide reliably sourced, community-based news reports that hold public officials accountable. And everyone doesn’t subscribe to the same sites — so social media doesn’t deliver personal and business messages — from grocery store flyers to garage sale ads, from public forum posts, to lost pet notices — to every local residence, as newspapers did until recent years.
Restoring courageous, unbiased reporting and helping to put newspapers back on every doorstep or email inbox would more effectively support the American values of individual opportunity, small business success, honesty of government and corporate leadership, and strong community spirit.
Kathryn Gerwig, Perrysville
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Social media can't replace local newspapers for reliable information
