August 3 - 9, 2023
Fa lls Chur c h, V i r g i ni a • ww w. fc np. c om • Fr ee
Fou n d e d 1991 • Vol. XXXIII No. 25
The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia
Beyer Hails SALIM’S CAMPAIGN KICKOFF Tahirih ProImmigrant Group Here Focuses on Girls, Women Escaping Gender Violence by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, whose 8th District of Virginia includes the City of Falls Church, appeared at a special meeting of the Falls Church-based chapter of the Tahirih Justice Center last Thursday to accept appreciation for his work to include the immigration-justice seeking organization in a substantial federal funding request and to hear updates on the non-profit organization’s work. “It was a unique moment for us” to have the Congressman there, said Casey Carter Swegman, public policy director for the Tahirih office here, which is its headquarters for the D.C. Metro area and one of five urban centers in the U.S. The organization supports women and girls who come as immigrant survivors of genderbased violence, offering free social services, from direct representation to emergency shelter, food and healthcare, community outreach and training.
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See Finalists Page 12
DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE for the Virginia State Senate Saddam Salim (left) held a campaign kickoff rally in Fairfax City Sunday that drew a large crowd from around his district that includes the City of Falls Church. Salim upset veteran lawmaker Chap Petersen in the Democratic primary in June to advance to the general election in November. (Photo: News-Press)
FCNP Interns Address Newspaper Challenges by Sam Mostow, Phebe Fahmy & Catherine Kane
(Editor’s Note – The following article is the result of a collaborative effort by three college interns who worked at the News-Press this summer.) We — the summer interns at the Falls Church News-Press — have spent the past 10 weeks reporting and writing stories that appeared on your doorstep every Thursday. It’s fulfilling work, and a way for us college students to gain experience in an increasingly rare breed of media: an independent local newspaper. It’s impossible to work at a newspaper for a period of time,
observing its intricacies and quirks, and not be aware of the perils facing newspapers in the 21st century. We are quite fortunate at the News-Press, with its independent ownership, but we acknowledge others are not so lucky. According to Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative, over 2,500 newspapers have disappeared in the United States since 2005, accounting for more than onequarter of printed publications. During the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 360 shut their doors. As of June 2022, there were 6,380 newspapers in the country; 1,230 were daily and 5,150 weekly.
The News-Press has published extensive reporting into the topic over the course of the summer. The series examined why newspapers are struggling and followed a bill, which passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee, that hopes to address the problem. While bills, such as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act in the United States and Online News Act in Canada, are passing through legislatures and becoming laws in some places, technology companies that will be most impacted, namely Google and Facebook, are refusing to cooperate, removing news features instead of negotiating to share revenue.
For us, and many other young reporters, trying to make a career out of the “dying industry” we are entering can be discouraging. With how newspapers are shrinking around the country, and many forms of journalism along with it, the future of newspapers can appear bleak. Social media became more prominent as the 21st century progressed, leading to advertisers investing more in digital advertisements, as opposed to print. According to Tonda Rush, general counsel for the National Newspaper Association who spoke to the News-Press for an
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