It’s been awhile since I graced your screens. Truth be told, sometimes life gets in the way of blogging. But it’s inevitable that I am drawn back to it by various means. This time, it was via a friend who probably didn’t know how many of my buttons she pushed when she commented that she missed reading me because “I do depend on you to read the paper so I don’t have to 
.”
Not the thing to say to a former newspaper reporter, one for the sake of open discourse, still depends on the industry to put food on the table. Not in these times, when newspapers are closing right, left and center. And though the belief is that small town newspapers such as ours are a bit more insulated from the virus that is decimating the industry, that’s not necessarily true.
Like many businesses during this recession, the “local rag,” as people may refer to it, is hurting. Advertising dollars have eroded. A major printing contract from the region’s paper of record disappeared. While it is busy reporting on layoffs at area enterprises, the N-G itself hasn’t been immune. And more layoffs are likely as the paper moves to a morning publishing cycle.
Get your news from the television? I have no problem with that. But consider this: the stations are not locally owned, and with a few exceptions, the folks talking in your television are not people who are invested in this community. They do not have the institutional memory of some of the lifers (OK, dinosaurs like Loren Tate; I can call him that because I know him) at the N-G. It wasn’t the television folks who brought to light that the owners of Pages of All Ages were well behind on their rent payments; it was the N-G. It wasn’t the television folks that exposed an elected public official slacking on the job; it was the N-G.
If you want the what, watch TV. If you want the why, read the paper.
But it’s not enough to just read the paper. My post about Pages for All Ages several weeks ago sparked an interesting discussion about supporting local businesses. This is a domino effect; I give my dollars to businesses that are locally owned as well as other businesses that invest in the local community. One of the primary reasons I don’t give my dollars to Sam Walton’s big bad box store is that they don’t advertise, for the most part, in in the local newspaper.
Everyone I know has their opinions on the local paper. It’s all sports, they say. It’s so conservative, they say. It has a terrible Web site, they say. I’m a big critic too, but I wouldn’t critique it if I didn’t care. Love it or hate it, it is undeniable that the N-G is a significant part of the fabric of Champaign-Urbana. And the same people who complain about it now will be the ones who will mourn it if it doesn’t survive the current downturn.
