This is National Newspaper Week. While taking a moment to note the role of the free press in a free society is certainly important, we must also acknowledge the role of our readers and advertisers.
We have a mutually beneficial relationship. Through subscribers’ and advertisers’ partnerships, we can be where we need to be – at the meetings and events impacting our community.
With Habersham County encompassing 278 square miles, that’s a daunting task. We attend and cover public meetings for seven municipalities, county commission, board of education and various other boards and authorities.
Our coverage translates into the articles which fill these pages with how your tax dollars are being spent.
Often, we are the only members of the general public present in those rooms where decisions large and small are made. That’s a tremendous responsibility and one we take seriously.
Today a sense of community can be hard to find in you-pick-a-destination America. And the pages of the newspaper are fewer than normal. Is there a direct correlation? We believe so.
As online shopping attacks the cash registers of main street merchants, random bits of information and opinion, disguised as fact, flood the minds of everyone with eyeballs and an internet connection. Yes, technology has provided solutions to both first and third world issues. However, in the process, it has damaged the financial and information pillars that built the greatest country the world has ever known.
For the last 130 years, The Northeast Georgian has continually kept our community on the same page with news and information professionally packaged by journalists with a relentless local focus and delivered to our residents’ homes each week. With each edition, we always strive to give our readers all sides and the back story in each article with sourced information.
As we celebrate National Newspaper Week, we encourage our community to be careful what information their brains absorb. Each of us make important decisions with consequences all the time. And when we form our decisions on false information, bad things happen.
We also want to encourage you to engage more with your local newspaper. Consider writing a letter to the editor, sharing a news tip with your editor, sending in a photo of a family or community event or give the gift of knowledge with a subscription to a friend. Folks, the pages of this newspaper belong, and are dedicated, to you Habersham County.
Here at your local newspaper, we consider it our duty and honor to keep Habersham County informed. And on National Newspaper Week we encourage you to guard your eyes against fake news.