Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

 

I came across an article shared by one of the newspaper associations that I follow online about the importance of newspapers in today’s day of news media.

In the article, it talked about a study conducted by the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy at Duke University, which randomly sampled 100 communities across the country and gathered a week’s worth of news stories found on 663 local media outlets’ websites. 

Out of the 16,000 stories that were gathered, 60% of those came from newspapers, which was more than all of the other types of media outlets combined.

Of those stories, 53% were original.

Why do I bring up this study?

Because I believe that though some newspapers are closing their doors and others are shrinking across the country, newspapers are still critical sources that provide relevant, important information — and that according to the study, produce more original stories than their counterparts in the media industry. That means more local content about things happening in our own community than what you would find on TV or on other sources.

Is there room for improvement? Yes, there always is, but we are always striving to provide as many quality-driven stories as possible that our readers can benefit from.

Having said that, do we get to all of the events we would like to? The answer is definitely not.

Are there still issues that need investigating? Yes.

But the great part about being a part of a community newspaper is that we value all of you out there in the community, and we ask you to be an extra set of eyes and ears for us and to help us know when things are happening that we might not be aware of.

Our staff members get to as many events as we can, but unfortunately we are not able to attend them all. If you don’t see us at an event, please don’t hesitate to send us photos or a small description of what took place. We would still love to spread the word about various events — even if we were not able to attend.

If you have news tips or information that should be looked into, please let us know, and we will do our best to find out answers.

We hope you will continue to support us for many years in our efforts to provide you, our readers, with valuable information.

We have a handful of journalists who are dedicated to the community.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.