Musings – on the editor's mind

It is a strange business with an odd purpose, newspaper publishing. It is a business and earns its profits by selling the interest and purchasing power of its readers to advertisers.

It attracts its readers with the news of the day, but that is more than just the facts that pop up in town. Reporting does start with, for example, news of water line breaks, whether on Channel Drive or Reservation Road. But that is the start of the story, both for staff and what appears on the page.

Journalism occurs when the editor and staff analyze underlying causes. That can be through examining the age of the infrastructure and historic funding sources that first built water and sewage treatment systems. It is linking heavy rains that eroded soil causing the road to sink and break the pipe. And it is through editorials that ask readers to consider a sustainable future is only possible if we cooperate and invest now for the sake of children yet unborn.

Newspapers are a business. Yet they have a critical role in a healthy democratic society. Our Founding Fathers planted newspapers’ community oversight role squarely in the First Amendment of the Constitution, the only business named in that document, calling for and defending freedom of the press.

It is in the nature and purpose of newspapers to ask questions, not for grandstanding or gotcha moments but to probe so the entire community can consider both the news of the day and underlying causes of decisions and reasons things are done or not done.

Not every resident can attend a council or school board meeting or observe a rising river or a leaking dike, but a newspaper takes the initiative as the eyes and ears of the community. A paper’s staff considers and plans, anticipating coverage but also helped by you, citizens who stop by or call or email with issues concerning them and which they believe the community would be helped by having it broadcast.

Broadcast. That is originally a farming term. One hundred years ago radio allowed the seemingly instantaneous widespread broadcasting of information. This paper reaches you weekly, as the name, Weekly News, states. Its goal is not to be first but to be accurate and helpful. Not every business owner considers that. For this publisher, it is the purpose for, yes, publishing.