Occasionally, we say......"no news is".......but golly, I don't know anymore......it seems there's more bad than good news.
Haven't got any more particulars to report on the recent Ogden Reporter/Madrid Register News story. The proposed closure date has silently passed and there have been small rumbles of some one or groups as potential buyers. But no dramatic conclusions have been aired.
Of course, the Korner does have access to a pair of local, long time communication experts who serve as our go-toos when it comes to such matters. So, let's lean to some of their thinking in this regard.
I'm proud to call Richard Longworth, BHS-53, a classmate of mine. Dick has reached the pinnacle of journalistic success in many ways, including Pulitzer Prize nominations, during his long career, primarily with the Chicago Tribune and United Press International and now, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. For 20 years, he served as the Tribune's Chief European Correspondent with work in 80 countries over five continents.
We've been in contact and I gladly lean on his perspective on this issue. In fact, he informs me that he has forwarded our story to the Local News Initiative at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Dick's alma mater.
Richard wrote, "that group is doing the best scholarly work on the decline of local newspapers. They tell me, no fewer than 3,500 American Newspapers, mostly small town papers, have vanished in the past 20 years. The result is "news deserts," which they define as "counties with no locally based source of original news at grass-roots levels that meets community needs." Sounds like Boone County right now."
He continued, "So what? What do we need newspapers for anyway? The usual answer is the keeping of an eye on local government and our tax dollars at work. But, I think there's an even more important reason. Local newspapers are a public diary, printing the every-day stuff that adds up to life in a real community. Good journalism is a conversation between reporters and readers and between the readers themselves, sort of a corner table in a cafe with the entire town listening. A newspaper chronicles a town's past and present. If you don't know where you've been or where you are, how can you decide, as a community, where you want to go?"
In a nice conclusion to his remarks, Richard said, "there's no real replacement for dead newspapers. Kelley's Korner, or the like, is one that comes closest, a real conversation between you and your readers. You do such valuable work. Keep it up."
Your editor replies, "the blood still flows and oxygen is fairly consistent BUT at 91, I wonder how much of my time remains and is there someone out there to "fill the gap" when needed?"
Another good friend, Vern Modeland, BHS-50, adds, "here's another example of a way of life fading away. Or is it pushed away? Things fade from age, weakness or a lack of interest, but fade when there is no one left who cares or can push'em along. You've done that for the News Republican. You keep alive a twinkle of the good "old" Boone that had a vibrant downtown, a bustling community with a twinkle in its eye when we all, young and old alike, used to see Saturday nights downtown to be a humming place to park, walk and talk to each other. But, today's media for the lazy has taken over or is being steered to put face-to-face communications on the chopping block. More and more someone else is doing the thinking and pushing. Big entities with lots of money and lots of one mission, to do our thinking for us and making big seem better. Do the homework and it appears the only "Big" in history took something away to get there. However, it's the ants that keep the colony humming, not whatever you call the one at the top."
Vern, of course, is another hero of mine, who took his great BHS education further than many with broadcasting work at KWBG, KFJB of Marshalltown, KJFJ of Webster City and then 10 years as an assignment news journalist for WHO radio and television in Des Moines. He added later work in marketing communications and photography for Beech Aircraft and Gates Lear Jet in Wichita, communications for Silver Dollar City in Branson, Cox Medical Centers in Missouri and finally, at the Food and Drug Administration in Washington D.C..
K-----K
Worldwide Korner headquarters are still located at 928 South Jackson, Boone, Iowa 50036-4932. Phone number is 515-432-1530. Leave a message. To email your stories/memories/comments/ death notices.......https://kelleyskorner1@blogspot.com.
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