Still standing

Editor’s Note: This column was originally published in September 2023. Though some of the statistics have changed, the underlying theme has not. This year’s National Newspaper Week began Sunday, Oct. 5 and will run through Saturday, Oct. 11. Thank you for reading and for supporting your local community newspaper.

I’ll have more to say on this subject next week, but I wanted to let our readers know that National Newspaper Week begins Sunday, Oct. 1.

It’s a good opportunity for us to be grateful — me for the opportunity to do the work I love in a community I love just as much and all of you for the blessing of still having a local newspaper.

Now, some of you may have a bone or two to pick with the paper in general, or with what’s sometimes written in this space in particular. And that’s just fine with me. It means you’re picking up the paper, you’re reading and you’re paying attention. That’s all I can ask. But before you send me too many angry letters and emails, I’d like you to try something. The next time you’re outside Carroll County, in another relatively small community, pick up the local newspaper there and compare it with ours. That is, if you can find a local newspaper.

The ugly truth is that a combination of circumstances have added up to cause real harm to the newspaper industry in America. And that does real harm to the communities those newspapers serve — or the ones they once served. According to a recent report, the number of non-daily newspapers in the United States dropped from 7,419 in 2004 to 5,147 in 2022. That’s a loss of 2,272 newspapers. And the number of daily papers fell, too, though not as sharply — from 1,472 in 2004 to 1,230 in 2022. Altogether, the number of newspapers in the U.S. fell from 8,891 to 6,377. That’s more than 28 percent — almost three out of 10.

How and why did this happen? The rise of the internet and social media are largely to blame, not only because more people think they can find all the news they need online but because many advertisers have the same belief. That’s not accurate, but it’s a longer discussion so we’ll save it for later.

There is plenty of room for improvement in our newspaper. I’m constantly thinking of ideas to make it better. I wish we had more space and more people to fill it.

But then I think about the more than 2,500 weekly newspapers that have ceased to operate in less than 20 years. We’re not perfect. But we’re still standing. That means a lot to me, and it should mean a lot to you, too. Carroll County News