This week, Oct. 3-9, is the 81st annual National Newspaper Week. It’s designed to celebrate and acknowledge the service provided to our respective communities, and recognize the efforts of our hard-working employees. And from our side, we use this week to express appreciation to those readers and advertisers who support our efforts to make us an award winning newspaper.
Few companies in our industry still view themselves as strictly a newspaper company. We have all transitioned much of our effort to digital formats, which is where a growing number of our audience read the news. We have also added specialty products like magazines and web-based promotions.
But we also enjoy the traditional, tactile experience of discovering what’s in a printed paper each week, as well.
Arthur Miller said, “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” While our efforts are not national and focus on Milam County and Rockdale, we provide that forum for our town to rationally discuss the issues of the day, whether that be affordable housing, the winter storm or coronavirus efforts.
At The Rockdale Reporter, our five employees provide content that is professionally written, attractively presented and helpful to our readers. Are we perfect? Of course not. But we do have standards we try to meet each week that rise above those of the daily melee that can be found on Facebook and other social media.
We try to inform and connect our community to information that is relevant and important. Most journalists view their vocation as a calling, a public service, and we try to foster relationships with those we serve.
While there are many avenues to express oneself these days, we strive to provide one that is civil, respectful and fair. We err on the side of giving people their say, and some attempt to take advantage of that.
This year, National Newspaper Week seems especially worth acknowledging, as our country and our world are awash in misinformation. Investigative reports from The Wall Street Journal show that false information is six times more likely to be shared on social media (Facebook) than accurately sourced information.
Other reports show the company insiders know these actions foster dangerous acts and actions, but are afraid to change the algorithm as it would affect “engagement,” or what they define as actively commenting, sharing or acting on posts. (That translates to fewer advertising dollars for Facebook, too, which is likely the real motivation for its failure to act.) These practices have proven to increase incivility and some say it is tearing our country apart.
And maybe Monday’s outage of Facebook and Instagram made us reflect on our unhealthy addiction to these platforms.
Our traditional media model is challenged by this. Facebook and Google, the two dominant digital media players, gobble up two-thirds of digital advertising in most markets, and that number jumps to 80% in smaller markets like ours. None of those dollars ever come back to town in the form of employee pay, sponsorships or donations.
So, we promote “buy local” and “shop small business” regularly, and we hope people in charge of local marketing budgets will take a larger view and treat our media outlet in the same way. All of our employees are engaged in this community in one way or another, whether it is through civic organizations, churches or other entities.
Times have changed for all media companies. Many newspaper-based news organizations have been shuttered in recent years, leaving communities without this important forum.
We have had our industry and coronavirus-economy challenges, to be sure, but we are grateful that we maintain a healthy product that has good readership.
So, join us in celebrating National Newspaper Week in our community forum, by subscribing, piping in on issues and using us for a piece of your business’s marketing. It’s a privilege to get to publish and one we do not take for granted. Hopefully, we reflect much of the best in this wonderful community.
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