June 2016 Community Journal Newsletter
Why community newspapers are thriving
By William E. (Bill) Garber
Founder
I scan Bo Sacks’s daily email list of publishing stories, though Bo is a magazine guy.
A few weeks ago he linked to Samir Husni’s article Lose the News – Keep the Paper. Samir Husni manages the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi.
Here’s Husni’s point:
“I am a firm believer that today more than ever we need papers; printed papers; we need them to read like weeklies on a daily basis, unless their frequency is already weekly, and then we need to call them by that moniker. I refuse to call them “news” papers because I really believe that the word newspaper is an oxymoron. In today’s world, there is no way that you can have news, actual breaking news, on paper. But does that mean that we have no need for papers anymore? No need for that printed product that comes curated, edited, well-thought-out, designed, and arrives on my doorstep or in my mailbox on a regular basis? We absolutely do need that product and I’ll tell you why.”
And, save for the occasional story that garners attention from more distant electronic media, once a week is perhaps the ideal frequency and paper the ideal medium.
