Last Saturday I was on the phone with an old-timer. He verbally bashed the newspaper I use to work for, telling me how it had gotten into the hands of the wrong people altering its political slant. Then he went on to say how newspapers were convenient, something that we had to have, current events that were transportable. Did I mention he was an old-timer? But I went on to tell him how the mainstream news media is hemorrhaging and predicted the death of journalism, at least as we've known it, will fade completely in another 2-3 years. But take heart, the free press is alive and well in small towns across America, thanks to the editors of thousands of weeklies who, for very little money and a fair amount of aggravation, keep telling it like it is. Sometimes they tell it gently, in code only the locals understand. After all, they have to live there too. But they also tell it with courage, and stand up to powerful bullies, from thugs to corrupt politicians.
Of course, most of these newspapers are not uncovering major scandals on a regular basis. That's not what keeps them pumping out editions; it's the steady stream of news that readers can only get from that publication - the births, deaths, crimes, sports and local shenanigans that only matter to the 5,000 or so souls in their circulation area. It's more than a little ironic that small-town papers have been thriving by practicing what the mainstream media are now preaching. "Citizen Journalism," – this is one of the latest buzzwords of the profession. But the concepts, without the fancy names, have been around for ages in small-town newspapers.
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You may be wondering about the Internet threat? Many of these small-town editors have learned a lesson from watching their big-city counterparts: Don't give it away. Many weeklies, charge for their Web content, and, because readers can't get that news anywhere else, they're willing to pay.
I wouldn't be so bold as to predict their future, not in a media landscape that is constantly shifting. But it's refreshing to remember a different kind of newspaper, one that lives in the hearts of weekly newspaper editors and reporters who keep churning out news for the corniest of reasons-because their readers depend on it.
I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people.
Joseph Pulitzer
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