Why local newspapers still matter (a lot)

 
Last week in Northampton, Mass., a town close to mine, there was a horrible crime. Close to a dozen fires were set in a two hour period. Two people died. Several houses were completely destroyed. Possessions were forever lost. Lives were turned upside down with the flick of a mad man's match. It was a crime so horrible in its scope that the governor himself came out to survey the damage the next morning.

Picked up beyond the local area

It was a story so large that the New York Times picked it up; and the Boston Globe, the region's largest daily newspaper gave it serious play. But I didn't learn about this story from the NYT or the Boston Globe. I learned about it because it was splashed across the front page of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the newspaper of record for the city of Northampton. It was a subject so intensely personal to the residents of the city and those nearby, and so locally focused that only a staff of writers who understand the city could give it the detailed coverage it deserved. Only local reporters could understand the neighborhood, the people who lived there, the relationships and the businesses. Sure, the outside reporters could come in and describe it too, but they would (and did) sound like people who swept in and asked some questions and wrote a story.

All comes back to local level

There is nothing wrong with coverage from large news outlets, but this story proved to me the importance of local news. It is vital to the life blood of a community to have a source of news, a record of events of local life, a place where you know you can find information--whether it's about the local elections, the school budgets or the horror of an event of this nature. And the coverage does not stop the day after, but lasts for many days. It includes stories about those whose homes were burned, how the city is coping, detailed profiles of those who perished and stories of the brave fire fighters and police officers who dealt with a two hour nightmare that was unimaginable for the community. The regional paper might cover it for the day or two after and when an arrest has been made, but they can't and won't follow it like this. They can't afford to assign the resources, especially these days with ever tightening budgets.

The current reality

Yes, there are a growing number of local sources of news including social sources, but these can't provide the depth that trained reporters brought to bear on a story of this magnitude. Some like NYU professor Clay Shirky have suggested that even though newspapers provide an undeniable service, the daily newspaper delivery method is no longer sustainable. I think to a large extent that's true, but at the same time I recognize (and so does Shirky) that there is a compelling need for the service that newspapers provide, especially at the local level like this.

Let's face it, right now, there are lots of alternatives out there for getting general news about what's going in the world, but there really aren't many great options for getting local news. Even when you factor in sites like iBrattleboro.com and local review services like Yelp, there is still a huge need for local news and local advertising. As I was paging through the Hampshire Gazette today, I saw an ad for a men's and women's basketball double header at UMass. Where could UMass realistically go to advertise that package if there weren't some local newspapers left to do it? They could put it on their website and they could use social networking, but to reach a broad local audience, the local newspaper remains the best option.

The Globe and NYT may swoop in on the big stories like this, and they might even do a decent job, but they can never bring what local reporters bring to the table. I write this because so many papers folded in 2009 and without a local newspaper, there has to be a huge hole in these communities, especially when an event of this proportion happens. It's entirely likely we will get to a place in the next decade that replaces the paper as we have known it, but there is little doubt about the clear and compelling need to have a place to process local events, whatever that ends up being moving forward. - Ron