Editorial

Our view: Vote for newspapers this election season. Vote for a more connected community.

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Oct. 4-11 marked National Newspaper Week, and we would like to take a moment to talk about that.

Technology has created so many ways for us to feel informed.

We say “feel” informed, because not all of these ways are truly informative or offer reliable, trusted sources for fair and balanced content.

That is what a community newspaper offers.

Community newspapers also offer residents a vital link to news about their own community, as was pointed out this week by Tom Silvestri, executive director of The Relevance Project, which advocates for community newspapers.

Silvestri believes new community newspapers need to become THE Community Forum. These newspapers are no longer about just providing relevant and important news, “but also a non-stop, informed conversation — interesting, civil, engaging, educational, timely and, of course, relevant.”

The new community newspaper perfects inviting, listening, researching, planning, collecting, reporting, connecting, collaborating and developing solutions, Silvestri wrote.

The Daily American Republic believes strongly in the vision of a community newspaper that also serves as a community forum.

It’s a goal we have been working toward for some time now, starting with the upgrades to our website and presence on social media.

It’s a goal we continue to work toward, and look for new ways to achieve.

One way we hope to help provide an informed conversation about what is going on in our community today is by inviting local residents to share their knowledge and opinions with columns like those on the front page today from members of our local Republican and Democrat central committees. By offering local viewpoints from both sides of the national debate, we hope to help foster a more informed discussion in our community.

As the U.S. approaches one of the most important decisions voters make every four years, we want to thank Eddy Justice and Keith French for being a part of community journalism.

And we want to invite readers to be a part of it as well. You can share your own thoughts and opinions with us in comments to stories on our website, www.darnews.com, and social media posts, and through letters to the editor and speak out submissions, which can be submitted to dfarley.dar@gmail.com.

Democracy wins when communities have strong ties to a trusted news source.

The right to a free press is one of the United States’ founding principles, because those who created our system of government recognized that even they needed to be held accountable.

“As local journalism declines,” stated a major PEN American study in 2019, “government officials conduct themselves with less integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness, and corporate malfeasance goes unchecked. With the loss of local news, citizens are: less likely to vote, less politically informed, and less likely to run for office.”

As Silvestri said in his column this week, vote for newspapers this election. Vote for a more informed, and a more connected community.

Vote by subscribing to support your local newspaper. (If you already do, a big thanks.)

Vote by advertising — cheers to current ad buyers. Patronize those who do.

Vote by engaging your newspaper. Write a letter to the editor, tweet appreciation to an enterprising reporter, send a suggestion to the publisher with a request to speak to him or her for a personal exchange.

Vote by learning more about your newspaper, its history, its mission, its staff and its ownership.

Vote by frequently checking the newspaper’s web site or news alerts.

Vote by signing up for its newsletters. And if it doesn’t have one (the DAR does), tell the newspaper you’re interested — especially the day’s headlines or a weekly entertainment summary of what’s happening.

Vote by adding to newspaper “likes” on social media.

Vote by making a video with pro-newspaper testimonials from neighbors and friends.

This campaign to elect newspapers is winnable, but much is at stake.

— Daily American Republic

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