The editor:
It’s about community connections.
Who tracks your local municipal governing councils, clubs, boards and policing activities? Who records the local and regional football teams and their progress or regression? Who looks for the moms and dads and their kids with cute teddy bears at the local swimming pool so they can share a cute (and safe) photo with others?
Of course it’s your local newspaper. No surprise there.
I just bring this up as a reminder that local newspapers need to remain local in nature, otherwise they are doomed for takeovers, reductions and quite often, closures.
We are fortunate to be able to share local news within our community with a local newspaper that gets it.
It’s not always about feeding investors and dividend production, or debts that need to be paid that aren’t locally generated, but rather what kind of production is coming from the local farmers’ market, and what can be done by the local chamber of commerce to provide even more community largesse.
This is not an argument with social media, but we must keep reminding ourselves that social media platforms don’t really care who you are. They just want to harvest knowledge from you regarding spending patterns to feed their online interests to the tune of billions of dollars. As the now familiar saying goes – you are not the customer, you are their product. There is nothing personal about them, although they would like you to believe there is a genuine interest in your wellbeing. Spoiler alert – there isn’t and they aren’t.
It’s all business and it’s a successful business for all these platforms, so there is no intention to rail against them. They are what they are and it is as it is. Don’t look for a heart and soul. Just find that new patio chair online that is $4 less than the one offered by the local business. That’ll do it! After all, free delivery, you can’t lose!
In the meantime, local businesses, including the local newspaper, struggle to maintain relevance because they’re not interested in flogging gossip and rumours about people you’ll never meet. The social media platforms are fine with chaotic ads that pop up and disappear on command or linger within the unedited and sometimes edited written words and photos.
Platforms don’t require verification and it’s nearly impossible to talk with them and they bear no responsibility for what may cross your path. There is entertainment to be found, but no real local substance, unless, of course, you seek out the local paper’s platform and get the real goods.
Local newspapers do use these platforms, of course they do, but they do so with a skill set and the knowledge that if they post nonsense or unverifiable information, the local readers and viewers will come charging into the office to lodge the protests and demand correction. Plus, they can have a discussion with a real person, and, if warranted, corrections.
Social platforms don’t provide you with that option. Where do you return that patio chair when it crumbles and gives up on you in the second summer of use?
Where can you go to see an advertisement that carries credibility along with information and even entertainment on occasion? Yep, it’s your local newspaper. And that ad sticks around for a week or more if you want, so you can refer to it again and again, along with the information in the flyers that came folded within it. Not bad.
As one public librarian, Rhonda Frevent in Burlington, Iowa, pointed out – the local newspaper is the repository of community knowledge.
There is a good reason your local newspaper has hung around for about 120 years. The people within are just doing their job, just like you and they do it with a sense of trust and mutual understanding of what we’re all doing in this place at this time.
Norm Park
Estevan
Former reporter/editor and a kind of advocate for The Mercury
