Newspapers give communities a sense of self
Caterpillar story provide much needed information
The Front Page
Morning Update
Friday, June 25, 2021
By Ken Tingley
The words resonated with me after a 40-year career in the newspaper business.
It was the mayor in New Bedford, Mass. talking about what a newspaper brings to a community. Mayor Jon Mitchell said that New Bedford had a lost “a sense of place,” with the reduction of coverage by the New Bedford Standard Times. The New York Times writer called what newspaper do “an ongoing narrative of daily life.”
I suspect it is one of the reasons I keep writing this newsletter. I want to maintain that sense of community in some form, that feedback, that discussion of the issues even if we disagree.
Two years ago, Mitchell asked citizens to “Support your local paper. Your city needs it to function effectively.”
Recent studies have shown that the costs to cities without a watchdog - a daily newspaper - includes declines in voter participation and drops in the city’s bond rating because government boards are not being held accountable for spending. Without newspaper coverage there is more waste and corruption.
Yes, newspapers can be a pain in the ass, but they save taxpayers money in the long run.
This week, the New Bedford mayor went a little further in the Times story.
“We don’t have a functioning newspaper anymore, and I say that with empathy with the folks who work there,” he said. “It used to be that I couldn’t sneeze without having to explain myself. Now, I have to beg people to show up at my press conferences. Please, ask me questions!”
You don’t get those types of complaints from public officials very often. Most prefer to be left alone, rather than be scrutinized.
While the Gannett-owned New Bedford newspaper has struggled, a new entity - the New Bedford Light - has opened to fill in the gaps as a nonprofit digital news gathering operation dependent totally on donations rather than advertising.
Their plan is to publish a daily in-depth news story while leaving the police blotter and local sports to the daily newspaper.
It may be a model you will see in the future in other small communities.
Mitchell is surprised other mayors aren’t talking about this.
“We’re all seeing this play out before us,” Mitchell told the Times. “When local media is diminished, the city is diminished, and when the city is diminished, the office of mayor is diminished. So it’s in the self interest of mayors to care about this.”
It’s the self interest of all of us to care about this.
Caterpillar update
I’ve been waiting for a local story to explain the caterpillar infestation we are currently experiencing and got it on Thursday with Dave Blow’s free-lance piece in The Post-Star.
Dave covered all the bases in the story, including that this was a cyclical occurrence. Heck, I remember it happening in Connecticut in the 1970s. More importantly, it was great to hear that our trees should recover in most cases.
Stefanik letter
Great letter in The Post-Star Thursday by Dominic Tom of Moreau.
Tom points out that it is the political system that is broken and that representatives like Elise Stefanik are groomed and trained in a system that is corrupt. They are nothing more than puppets. Even if she was to lose an election, there is a good chance we would just get another puppet and all her henchmen would go to work for the new puppet.
Tom’s letter was discouraging, but it seemed about right. Unfortunately, the puppet is sometimes named Chucky.
