Without weeklies, who will provide small-town news?

Many businesses have been hit hard by economic turmoil: Home Depot has had four years of negative sales growth and has laid off thousands of employees, General Motors and Chrysler are considering bankruptcy and Southwest Airlines posted a $91-million loss for the first quarter of the year.

Newspapers, as a business, are not exempt from mismanagement and economic cataclysms, as was proven by the recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy of the Journal Register Company out of Yardley, Pa., which led to the closing of weekly newspapers in Litchfield and Kent in Connecticut and the eight newspapers that made up the Taconic Media group in New York.

But, as Ken Paulson, former editor of USA Today, said in his keynote address at this year’s New York Press Association conference in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., “No one is predicting the demise of hammers.†(View part of his speech at youtube.com/watch?v=YxXx1e8SRTA&.)

When newspapers struggle, television commentators, online bloggers and sometimes even newspapers themselves are quick to say that newspapers have become obsolete. But with more information than one brain can comprehend available on the Internet at the click of a mouse, there is even more need now for a finite delivery system such as a newspaper.

Paulson pointed out that a newspaper, specifically a community newspaper, allows you to access the news in your town without a lengthy Google search. You will never stumble across pornography while reading a newspaper. And a newspaper won’t infect any of your electronic equipment with a virus.

Most importantly, newspapers employ fact checkers. Unlike many Web sites, newspapers make it their mission to verify facts before sharing them with the community. Those who work at newspapers do the hard work of deciphering the town budgets, going to board of education meetings and collecting all the other information you need and want so that you, the reader, can know with reasonable confidence that you have a real idea of what is going on in your hometown.

When the Kent Good Times Dispatch closed in January, Shaw Israel Izikson reported a few responses in the Jan. 29 Lakeville Journal: Robin Herde said, “It’s a shame because a lot goes on in Kent and it was the only paper that covered all of itâ€; Cheryl Geason explained, “It makes me sad because a local paper has deep ties with the community.†The people of Kent felt then the truth about newspapers: They reflect the communities they cover.

The Lakeville Journal Co. newspapers — The Lakeville Journal, The Millerton News and The Winsted Journal — are independently owned. They do not answer to a mass of stockholders eager for ever larger profits. Instead, they answer to a group of owners who are businessmen and journalists dedicated to Northwest Corner communities. The mission of our papers is to serve our communities by reporting the news you need to know. The reporters and editors of your local paper will continue to shine a light into dark places in an effort to find out what is happening in your town. The newspaper will survive because it provides a community an accurate picture of itself.