~by Denise O’Brien Van
It’s National Newspaper Week( Oct. 5 – 11), and I’ve been thinking about the role of country weeklies in the swirling pool of American media.
Country weeklies reflect the values of their communities. They question accepted practices and challenge assumptions and shine a light on the faults and ambitions of their readers.
Big papers seem to be getting smaller, trimming newsroom staff, paring back on coverage of state legislatures, city councils and school boards and drawing in their “Golden Circles.” They’re bottom-line businesses now, always looking at circulation numbers and advertising revenue.
Seems to me that the one part of the print media that’s viable is country weeklies.
They are the one outlet in which small town businesses can advertise at reasonable rates. They are the only place small town residents can learn about what’s going on in their communities (cable scrolls can’t offer enough info).
Many of the very best country weeklies have lively editorial pages, rife with give and take about local issues.
In this country, newspaper readers possess a time-honored right to complain. Engaged citizens take advantage of those columns to grumble, grouch and gripe, and sometimes, to compliment. A good newspaper welcomes these observations and delights in the feedback. An old editor of mine always responded to criticism with “You may be right.” He accepted compliments offered to his staff, but never printed admiring letters about his columns.
In small towns, where editors are integral parts of their communities, where everyone knows them, readers often forego the formality of letters to the editor, and buttonhole them in church, at the Post Office, in the coffee shop. Sometimes, they give them a call on the telephone.
Most editors of small town newspapers realize that they inhabit a special place in the towns they serve. They buy ink by the barrel. They have to be careful and cautious, thoughtful and responsible about how they splash that ink around. They understand that they’re of the town, and also above it. Most know the history of their towns and try to divine the future of the places where they live and work. Occupying their singular space and writing about it in their papers’ news and editorial pages, most editors possess a certain amount of maturity, a vast reserve of common sense and a deep respect for their readers.
To survive, editors grow thick skins. Most are good at what they do, professional and ethical as they report the news they gather and print about the townspeople they know and serve. They grasp that they’re never going to be universally loved and admired. They know, early on in their careers, that all their mistakes show up in print.
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During her long career in journalism and public relations, Denise O’Brien Van has had plenty of mistakes show up in print. Her first appearance in print was as a reporter for The Quill, the Jefferson High School student newspaper of which she was editor in her senior year, when she also was a columnist for the Jefferson Bee & Herald. She earned a degree in journalism from the University of Iowa. and always planned to own a country weekly. She ended up as a reporter for the Des Moines Register, a suburban Chicago weekly and a chain of metro Des Moines weeklies where she covered West Des Moines city government, Dallas County and the Waukee School District, and she spent many years as a public relations practitioner. She has been a frequent contributor to GreeneCountyNewsOnline and to the Bee & Herald.
