Power of the press

This is National Newspaper Week and this year’s theme is “power of the press.” That leads us to a list of very provocative questions about newspapers and their future. We hope all our readers will be interested in some of the answers.
First, do newspapers still have any real power in this age of the Internet and global messaging? Why should newspaper readers care about the wellbeing or strength of their local newspaper? If there is such a thing as “power of the press,” is it still being used for the right things? Anyway, how much longer do we really think old, clunky newspapers will survive?
Readers won’t find our answers too surprising. Except for this first one: without readers there is no power of the press. The most professional and hardest working journalist ever born is powerless without an audience. If there are places where a newspaper is losing its power and business strength, it is because that is where you also will find a “too busy” public, a community without pride or with forces of censorship — either covert or self-inflicted.
With great satisfaction and pride, we are able to report that the power of the press is alive and well here, both inside this newspaper and flourishing among our readers and community.
But that still leaves us with some trickier questions mentioned above. How can a newspaper, especially one as small and unmighty as this one, still claim power? In this Age of Information, isn’t a newspaper too old fashioned, too slow and too gray to compete for authority and acceptance?
Here’s our unsurprising answer: newspapers and the journalists who write them are more essential than ever before. That is because this is not the Age of Information; it is the Age of Misinformation. Trustworthy, fact-checked, accessible information becomes more valuable and powerful, the more the sources of misinformation, deceit and secrets spread.
News travels fast in our small town. Bad news and the more sensational buzzing travel the fastest — especially across the Internet, somebody’s Facebook page or in a tweet. But all too often that “news” is little more than a rumor or gossip. Many times it is exaggerated, sometimes intentionally. Lots of times only the “fun” news or gossip gets shared. Boring but important news gets ignored or goes unrepeated. Nobody much likes inconvenient truths or harsh tragedies put in front of them.
It is the power of the press that doublechecks the facts, kills rumors, uncovers secrets, puts elected officials on the record and fights censorship. The power of the press is shared equally with each and every reader, regardless of class or social position. The ultimate use of the power of the press is to empower readers and engage citizen action.
The formula that creates powerful newspapers and trustworthy journalists has changed mightily in recent years. Once upon a time, the daily news was handed down like Moses delivering the truth on stone tablets. Three men sat at nightly TV desks at CBS, NBC or ABC and told the rest of us “and that’s the way it is.”
Not anymore. The definition of news has changed. News used to be a one-way communication. Now news is a many-to-many dialogue. To have any power these days, journalists must listen lots more than they talk or write. They must check lots of sources, not just the few.
But anybody can be a listener or be a blogger. A Facebook post is not “news.” The Internet is full of fraud, fakes and hoaxes. All that can be powerful, but only in a harmful or disruptive way.
Real power of the press is derived from restraint and with professionalism. It requires a special intelligence to decipher bullshit without stepping in it.
We bet you weren’t quite ready for that part of our answer, were you?
— Rollie Atkinson