I really have to hand it to The Edge, the paper you are reading now. They deserve a huge compliment because they are doing a terrific job. Let’s face it — local journalism is in tough shape. Obviously, the more outlets for local news that we have, the better. Things can go very wrong when local news outlets disappear. People get starved for real news. Sometimes, things can get very serious. You had better believe that this has profound effects on the politics of any community. The less information you have, the less effect you can have on your local community and its politics. It’s really too bad that we are going in the wrong direction.
Local journalism all too often suffers when a single news outlet becomes predominant. There is an old saying that nature abhors a vacuum. When news outlets are scarce, someone should fill in the void. So along come the two people behind The Edge who know how important local news outlets can be. I am immensely grateful to Marcie Setlow (publisher) and David Scribner (editor) for their willingness to give us The Edge. Both know their business and Scribner was once editor of the Berkshire’s countywide newspaper.
I have always believed that when you have more outlets, you are in better shape. When I was a kid on the West Side of Manhattan, we had a very local newspaper called The West Side News. That paper proved that local journalism was very important, since some news really didn’t rise to the level of the New York Times.
Things have indeed changed in journalism, and sometimes for the better. Many of us subscribe to the New York Times, either in print or online. Ditto a lot of other journalistic enterprises. The days of actual paper newspapers are fading into history. Of course, there was something quite comforting about holding those pages in our hands. Many people will never have that pleasure.
When you look at people like Scribner and Setlow, you understand just how important their commitment to providing us with information can be. The last thing we need is a monopoly where there is only one place to access news, since that news is the basis of our politics. Some people believe that once they become THE news outlet, they will control our politics.
We do know that people who control our journalism can be potential political kings and we know some of them have had dubious rationales in their quest for power. Many, but certainly not all, people who run news organizations do it for the acquisition and maintenance of political power. If anyone calls “foul,” some of these people will be the first ones to suggest that anyone who opposes them and their control is trying to violate their First Amendment rights and freedom of the press. Let there be no mistake about it — many people take their political clues from newspapers and the result is that news organizations can have tremendous sway over our populous.
So, it is up to each and every one of us to support honest, local journalism and at the same time hold all news organizations up to the light. When those organizations are attacked by self-serving politicians, and believe me I have seen that, it is every citizen’s job to protect those who deliver the news.
In the Berkshires, we need to understand there are those who seek political power by trying to manipulate the press. Often, they complain about how they are being covered. Sometimes they are correct. If a county district attorney believes that a newspaper or its publisher has a historical complaint, for example, it is important that we all suspect the motives of the news organization.
