How many of us find ourselves irritated or offended by comments on Facebook or other social media sites? It’s important to be in the know about big traffic jams on I-93, sightings of multiple emergency vehicles, school busses stopped on the side of the road, and icy road conditions during the winter. However, this information is often followed by rumors, half-truths, and anonymous comments. Sometimes the facts are there, but the material we read is often based on opinion and speculation.
Depending where you click, you might get the story. Or, you might be treated to somebody’s idea of the story, which lacks facts all together.
Although there has been talk about the internet being the death of the newspaper, we don’t buy it. We know now that this will only be the case with the ‘big ones’ and their weeklies that only pretend to be local. Privately owned community and local weeklies will soon be the only reliable source of information.
Social media postings can catch and keep our attention by providing real-time content, but they create rumors, suspicions, and conspiracy theories, making it difficult to tell truth from fiction. This is not the case in community newspapers, though, which are based on facts, people, and places we all know. What you read in print may not be as exciting as the latest social media posting, but it’s factual, and if we make a mistake, we correct it in the next edition.
The purpose of a community newspaper is to report the facts rather than to speculate or start rumors, even though we’re all tempted to sometimes. While reporters are asked to investigate rumors, readers will never see stories containing information that has not been proven to be true. We do not create news. We cover what will happen and what has happened publicly.
While sites like Facebook don’t have word count limitations, they cater to the short attention spans we’ve developed since the advent of the Internet. If you want to find out what really happened, pick up a community newspaper. You may not like what an article says, but it’s based on the facts.
We also tend to forget about the personal aspect of community newspapers. Nutfield Publishing’s three publications are committed to reporting and photographing what happens in their respective towns. Our reporters, photographers, and owners live in the area and are familiar faces as they attend and support community endeavors. We aren’t anonymous – you know where to find us. When you support us, you support a local business.
So, go ahead and check out social media. We all do it. We even have Facebook pages for our three newspapers. But, if you want to read about what really happens in your community, you can’t beat a community newspaper.