The value of local news
When Doonesbury takes a view on your cause, you’ve reached a certain status.
Garry Trudeau’s panel of Sunday, Nov. 10, had Mike and Kim enjoying their Sunday newspaper and a cup of coffee, musing the importance of local news.
“Without a newspaper, print or online, people lose a host of connections with their community,” says Mike. By cartoon’s end the couple has imagined a nightmare scenario without a local news source.
We live with that here in the Virginia Piedmont. Recent developments place us at the epicenter of the seismic forces impacting local journalism in America.
Last week’s edition of the Rappahannock News (and the Fauquier Times) featured the final installment of “Opioid Ripples,” a six-month public service journalism project documenting the devastating impact on families and virtually all sectors of local life. Foothills Forum joined the nonprofit Piedmont Journalism Foundation (PJF) as well as for-profit and nonprofit publishers in four counties — Rappahannock, Fauquier, Culpeper and Prince William — in sharing this in-depth series across the Piedmont.
Randy Rieland guided the compelling reporting in this first-time, four-part regional project. The cumulative death toll he documents of young lives lost too soon to addiction is a gut punch. Topnotch graphics once again by Laura Stanton added depth to understanding what’s at stake. Photographer Kenneth Garrett and lead editor Lynn Medford brought decades of experience to the project. The weeklies led with savvy ultimate decisions on publishing and design, adding online, video and podcast elements. Here’s the series: rappnews.com/ opioids.
A 10-item summary, “What we’ve learned,” lays out the facts. Among them:
▶ The Piedmont has a critical shortage of treatment facilities; the Rappahannock-Rapidan Health District has just one acute addiction treatment facility.
▶ Genetic factors account for 50 to 60 percent of addiction, according to research, and yet our laws and programs to treat addiction haven’t caught up to that reality.
▶ The Piedmont badly needs more doctors trained to treat addicts.
▶ We desperately need foster families.
Last week’s installment reveals how important actors — our public health officials, our first responders — struggle with these new realities while operating with conflicting laws, regulations, guidance, acceptance.
“The state legislature needs to be involved,” said Fauquier County Sheriff Bob Mosier. “If they can change the law, it wouldn’t put law enforcement in an awkward position.”
The series findings suggest a path forward for those tasked with tackling the local impacts — including some 700 deaths — of this devastating national epidemic. Even as acceptance grows that addiction isn’t automatically a moral choice, our region faces a long, costly road with tough choices. The series is included in the Best of Nonprofit News 2019, compiled by the Institute for Nonprofit News (inn.org/the-best-ofnonprofit-news-2019).
None of this is possible without a community that values local news to the extent it’s willing to support fact-based, in-depth reporting. That’s been the case for the past five years in Rappahannock via the relationship Foothills Forum and the weekly News. Donor support for the two civic news organizations — Foothills and PJF — made the opioids series possible, including partial funding from the PATH Foundation.
As the opioids series wrapped up last week, a related development — the nonprofit PJF has agreed to take ownership of the weekly Fauquier Times — shows a commitment to local journalism by providing leadership and prospects for financial stability. Similar developments in Salt Lake City, Philadelphia and bigger stages elsewhere show the nonprofit route is but one approach to ensuring that local news lands on your doorstep or iPad.
A report this week by Gallup and Knight Foundation says Americans believe local news has community value, but 56 percent surveyed erroneously think local news organizations are doing well financially. They are not. U.S. newsrooms have lost 50 percent of their staffing in the past decade, and 2,100 newspapers have been shuttered since 2005.
We’re fortunate. This region’s residents appear committed to sustaining local news. “... Local citizens believe in the importance of local journalism ...,” wrote Times publisher Catherine M. Nelson. The cooperation shown in presenting the opioids series by multiple regional publishers (traditionally tough-nosed competitors) starts with an acute awareness that local news is a public good to be treasured.
A public good that provides news you need every day — not to mention the Sunday comics.
Larry “Bud” Meyer is cofounder and chair of Foothills Forum. He lives in Rappahannock County.