To the Editor:
I read your opinion piece, “Time to Step Up for Local News,” in the Jan. 1 edition of the Herald with a mixture of concern and agreement. Concern for the challenges faced by news outlets great and small in our nation; agreement that it is up to each of us as members of our communities to support our publications not just by reading, but by subscribing.
When I log in to The Washington Post online, I always stop to read the Post’s motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” How true. Then I remember former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill’s observation that “all politics is local,” a statement I have slowly but surely come to understand and appreciate as I’ve grown older. The two go hand in hand, and the founders of this country knew it well: Only an educated and fully informed citizenry can preserve and enrich our democracy.
For many of the reasons you describe in your piece, we are in peril of losing one leg of that mission to preserve and enrich our constitutionally mandated and protected press: It may be protected from political influence and corruption, but sadly, not from loss of revenue. We are blessed with a number of excellent newspapers in our area, with excellent local reporting along with a wealth of information of interest.
Sadly, so many parts of our country have none of that. Not a single local news outlet. One by one they have vanished, largely because the areas they served were not wise enough to support and actively preserve them.
Democracy does die in darkness. And all politics really is local. So many countries around the world do not have a free press. Their governments use what should have been sources of light and inspiration as methods of oppression instead.
We are so lucky. But luck does not pay the bills. I challenge each and every one of my fellow readers to purchase a subscription to each of your local publications. Without us, they will wither. Without them, so will we.
