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You might think we’d be gloating about recent changes at the state’s largest newspaper — layoffs and locally, the elimination of the South County Section. You’d be wrong.
No one who has any interest in newspapers can see what’s happened at the Providence Journal as a good thing. There’s a lot less coverage of local news.
We admit we liked to think of the Journal, especially its South County section, as our competition (although we would judge the playing field to be a bit uneven – it’s hard to beat a daily paper). Still, we embraced the challenge of covering something they didn’t or beating them on a local story. And we also enjoyed their local coverage as newspaper professionals and area residents. We miss the coverage of our hometown.
Over the years, we knew if we let something slip, there was a good chance we’d be reading about it in the Journal’s South County section the following day. It kept us on our toes. Now there is no South County section.
We’d like to think we’ve always done a better job of providing truly local coverage of issues, but, in an area where local issues often rise to the level of statewide interest, the Journal provided a level of resources that outreached what is available to the local paper. We can only hope it will continue to add that necessary component to stories from the area, but we haven’t seen it so far.
We think the coverage we provide is even more important now that the Journal appears to be lessening its presence in the area. The communities we cover might no longer have the option of choosing between three newspapers (The Sun being our other competitor) for local news but we will do our best to embrace the challenge of ensuring that they will still get all the news they want and need.
The issues facing the Journal are not unknown to the local papers; they are just more visible on the larger scale. If the state’s largest newspaper finds itself unable to continue to operate at the level that has come to be expected of it, imagine the challenges facing the smaller newspapers.
What the community newspapers truly need to be able to continue to provide local news is the support of the communities they serve. If the local community truly wants to have the option of getting its news and information from a local newspaper, it needs to make that message clear with its advertising dollars, subscription orders and willingness to contribute to the cause with its ideas and energy. Please call us with your hot tips!
The next time you decide to just pick up the South County section to see what the Journal says about this area, it won’t be there. We’d like to think we will be there to provide an alternative source of local news.
Those who truly believe in the importance of newspapers have suffered a tremendous loss with the Journal’s decision to limit its presence in the area. A more-than-worthy competitor has been forced to bow in defeat.
With the future of local news coverage on the line, we are all in the late innings and its time for the community to step up to the plate.
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