Recently, I finished reading a book published in 1941 called Managing Newspaper Correspondents. It was written for editors of small daily and weekly newspapers. At the time, according to the book, there were 250,000 newspaper correspondents.
Correspondents were not professional journalists -- some were paid, most weren't. In the age of the Internet, we might call them "citizen journalists." They were people who wrote for the local newspaper because they enjoyed telling other people what was going on in their towns or their neighborhoods.
I have no idea how many such correspondents are still used by newspapers, but after about twenty years in the community newspaper business, I'm confident it is some number well south of 250K.
Correspondents did more than report what they called "locals," and media pundits now call "hyperlocal." They helped facilitate the conversation in a community. They played a vital role in bringing a community together.
A few years ago, Robert Putnam wrote Bowling Alone. The title illustrates a simple point -- there were more people bowling in America than ever before, but fewer bowling leagues. Our society has evolved into something where people participate less in their communities and spend more time in isolated activities.
There are a lot of social forces that have contributed to this trend, of course, but I can't help but think there is some connection between local newspapers getting more "professional," taking all of those "locals" out of their news columns, and the weakening social cohesion across America.
This isn't an issue in many European countries, where local newspaper readership remains strong and civic engagement remains high, and Europe has long commutes, smaller families, television, video games and the Internet, too.
We hope The Batavian can be part of a new trend to put the "community" back in community news.
This isn't an effort we can successfully undertake alone. We need your help.
Here's what you can do:
- Stay informed. Listen to WBTA and subscribe to the Daily News. Use The Batavian to either fill in the gaps (no one news organization today can get to all the news) or catch up when pressed for time.
- Contribute. Participate. Be one of our correspondents. You can post your own news and commentary on The Batavian as blog posts, or you can comment on what somebody else has posted. You can also send your news tips to Philip Anselmo (e-mail: philip (at) the batavian dot com).
- Believe in Batavia. Batavia has a lot going for it. People working together in a spirit of hope can accomplish worthy goals. There's no reason that Batavia can't build on its long history of success as a community and become an even better place to live and work.
- Encourage your friends, family and co-workers to do all of the above. E-mail the link to this post to them. Help them discover there is a new way to contribute to Batavia.
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