4A | THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2020 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Cottage Grove Sentinel
116 N. Sixth St.
Cottage Grove, Ore. 97424
NED HICKSON , MANAGING EDITOR |
Opinion
541-902-3520 | NHICKSON @ CGSENTINEL . COM
The First Amendment
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ongress shall make no law respect-
ing an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press, or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the Govern-
ment for a redress of grievances.
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800)
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Copyright 2020 © COTTAGE GROVE SENTINAL
Letters to the Editor Policy
The Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a
community discussion of issues on the local, state and national
level.
Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters
must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address
and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters
should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to
editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any
letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the
volume of letters received.
Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative,
sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without
documentation will not be published.
Letters containing poetry or from outside The Sentinel
readership area will only be published at the discretion of the
editor.
Political/Election Letters:
Meeting the challenges faced by community papers
Recently, I had the op-
portunity to speak on the
challenges faced by com-
munity newspapers like
the The Sentinel, as well as
the Siuslaw News, where I
am also the editor.
Truth be told, commu-
nity newspapers have been
hit particularly hard by the
economic challenges con-
fronting local journalism,
which raises questions
about whether these legacy
papers dating back more
than 100 years still serve
as the lynchpins of local
reporting in their commu-
nities into the future — or
whether other types of
news outlets will step up to
take their place.
Harvard
University’s
Neiman Journalism Lab
recently conducted a study
that explored which types
of news outlets are the
most significant producers
of journalism in 100 ran-
domly sampled communi-
ties across the U.S.
The study produced an
inventory of all media out-
lets located within these
100 communities, and
gathered a week’s worth
of news stories found on
these outlets’ home pag-
es (which was more than
16,000 stories in all).
Each story was analyzed
to determine whether they
met each of the following
three criteria:
1) Was the story origi-
nal?
2) Was the story local?
3) Did the story ad-
dress a critical information
need?
The results showed that,
despite the economic hard-
ships that local newspapers
have endured, they remain
— by far — the most sig-
nificant providers of jour-
nalism in their communi-
ties.
And while there had
been predictions that
online-only
journalism
would compensate for the
cutbacks and closures af-
fecting local print newspa-
pers, the study showed that
those expectations have
fallen well short of predic-
tions.
The study found, for
instance, that while local
newspapers accounted for
roughly 25 percent of the
local media outlets in the
sample, they accounted
for nearly 60 percent of
the original news stories
collected in the 100-city
sample.
In fact, local newspapers
produced more of the re-
porting in their communi-
ties than television, radio
and online-only outlets
combined.
When the results were
compared,
online-only
news sources accounted
for just 10 percent of orig-
inal news content within
their communities.
Media and Journalism.
This has led to the rise
of “ghost papers,” which
are papers produced out-
side of their communities
and patched together with
canned news. In many
cases, communities across
the country have been left
without any local paper at
all.
Number 2 in this unfor-
tunate trifecta:
The two-edged sword of
social media.
On the plus side, social
media has allowed smaller
newspapers like this one to
be more relevant and time-
From the Managing Editor’s Desk
Ned Hickson
Guess where 60 percent
of the remaining content
came from?
That’s right: Community
newspaper sources.
Over the course of the
last 10 years, the newspa-
per industry was hit by a
trifecta of challenges.
Rising cost of
newsprint.
A months-long spike in
the price of paper, driven
by federal tariffs on Cana-
dian suppliers, slammed
newspapers and drove the
costs of news print into
double-digit increases be-
ginning in 2017 and lasting
through late 2018.
Newsprint is typically a
publication’s second-big-
gest operating expense
after labor. The result was
a wholesale cutting of
journalists at newspapers
across the country.
According to News Me-
dia Alliance, nearly half of
the 272 newspaper pub-
lishers surveyed said they
had laid off news staff as a
direct result of newsprint
price increases.
In addition, some 71
percent said they had also
cut back the number of
pages they published each
day.
Publishers reported an
average annual newsprint
cost increase of $176,818
Over the past 15 years,
more than one-in-five
newspapers in the U.S. has
closed, with half of those
closures occurring in the
last four years. And for the
papers that remained open,
the number of journalists
working for them has been
cut in half, according to re-
search by the University of
North Carolina’s School of
ly by providing us a way to
share important informa-
tion and news stories on a
daily basis by posting them
online and sharing them to
our social media sites.
The downside is that
social media has ushered
in an age of unverified in-
formation or opinion pre-
sented as fact. The result
has been a general mistrust
of media as a whole when
it doesn’t conform to a spe-
cific narrative.
I can tell you that near-
ly a quarter of our time is
spent investigating or dis-
pelling rumors that begin
on social media.
While social media has
provided small newspa-
pers with an impactful way
of getting information out
to the communities they
serve, it has also made our
job as journalists harder by
introducing another layer
of information that needs
to be clarified and — more
often than not — dispelled
through additional re-
sources and investigation.
The third challenge
journalists face:
The politicalization of
news and blurring of
opinion with fact.
This actually began
more than a decade ago
with the advent of cable
news and the 24-hour
news cycle, which has ea-
gerly been filled with news
“analysis” and opinion
programming.
The result has been the
tribalization of informa-
tion as people actively seek
— or are tagged with — the
news that best supports a
specific narrative or polit-
ical leaning. Coupled with
social media, the distrust
of journalism at the na-
tional level has trickled
down to even small com-
munity newspapers as po-
litical divisiveness on both
sides attempt to pressure
local news to reflect a spe-
cific narrative.
So, how has The Senti-
nel and other community
newspapers survived? And
what does the future hold
for community journal-
ism?
Since becoming manag-
ing editor at The Sentinel
a little over two years ago,
my goal has been — and
continues to be — a simple
one:
To provide the commu-
nity with the sound of its
own voice.
Arthur Miller once
wrote that “A good news-
paper is a nation talking
to itself.” I feel the same
applies to a good commu-
nity newspaper. It should
be made up of reporting
that reflects facts and per-
spectives from all sides of
the conversation, along
with the opportunity for
individuals to express
their viewpoints in letters
and editorials through the
Opinion page.
We need to celebrate our
achievements as a commu-
nity as well as recognize
our failures by being both
chroniclers and watch-
dogs.
The fact that we have
received complaints from
both republicans and dem-
ocrats, liberals and con-
servatives for leaning “too
far left” or “too far right”
(sometimes on the same
day) tells me we are some-
where in the middle —
which is where we should
be to remain objective.
I think that is a big part
of why we have survived
131 years and why, over
the last few years, we’ve
thrived and grown despite
the challenges.
As for the future, though
the number of legacy news-
papers has declined, those
like The Sentinel, Siuslaw
News and our neighbors
at The Chronicle remain
because they have yet to be
displaced as a vital source
of local journalism.
And if the Harvard Uni-
versity study I mentioned
earlier is any indication,
the emergence of on-
line-only and “ghost news-
papers” as comparable
sources of local journalism
still appears to be a very
long way off.
Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely
issues of interest to our readers at-large.
Letters must: 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns
on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information
about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand
knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support
candidates based on personal experience and perspective
rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric.
Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor
column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes;
this constitutes paid political advertising.
As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper,
at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and
editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow
the above criteria.
Send letters to:
nhickson@cgsentinel.com
HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS
Oregon state
representatives
Oregon federal
representatives
• Sen. Floyd Prozanski
• Rep. Peter DeFazio
District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@
state.or.us
(House of Representatives)
405 East 8th Ave.
#2030
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: defazio.house.gov/
contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
900 Court St. NE
Salem, Ore. 97301
Phone: 503-986-1407
Website: www.leg.state.or.
us/hayden
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
• Sen. Ron Wyden
405 East 8th Ave., Suite
2020
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: wyden.senate.gov
Phone: (541) 431-0229
• Sen. Jeff Merkley
Email: merkley.senate.gov
Phone: 541-465-6750
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