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THE CITIZEN
www.presspubs.com
NOVEMBER 8, 2018
Special designation
S
o you think you're special? The answer to that question — based on variables like genetic heritage, family of origin and life experiences — strongly points to the conclusion that yes, we are all indeed unique in some way. During a recent phone conversation with my father I was reminded that my nephew Josiah, who is currently serving overseas in the Army and was quoted in an October article in “Stars and Stripes,” shares his name with an ancestor who fought at the battle of Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary War. My father, who enlisted in the Army during WWII at the age of 17 and was staAngle of tioned at MacArthur’s headquarters in Japan following the war, View expressed pride at this extended family lineage of military service. Paul Dols I’m not exactly sure how we got on the topic, but I recall sharing with a coworker the fact about the ancestor on my mother’s side of the family tree who fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. He politely listened and then shared that his wife (who was originally from the east coast) could trace her ancestry back to the family that owned the land where the historic battle took place. Similarly, a former editor responded to a column I wrote after being inspired by “Mayflower: A Story of Community, Courage, and War” by Nathaniel Philbrick. I had read the book with heightened interest because I was curious to see if any of my ancestral connections to the pilgrims were noted. I also found the book to be fascinating because it described a much more vivid reality than the accepted mythology many of us learned in grade school — including the complex relationship the Pilgrims had with the Native Americans. According to Philbrick, the Pilgrims likely would have perished during the first winter without the assistance of Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag tribe. After expressing her interest in the column, the former editor shared that she also had an ancestral connection to this time in history and was a direct descendant of Massasoit. At the time I thought, wow, what a small world, while any notions of exclusivity concerning my family heritage were put into perspective. Years before the emergence of services like ancestry.com my father conducted extensive research into our family’s history, tracing the roots back to Gundrada, the daughter of William the Conqueror. I shared this bit of trivia with a friend and he said that his family could also trace their roots back to William the Conqueror. Apparently William was prolific, because a significant segment of the population with family origins back in England are his descendants. Searching back into family history, I suspect most of us hope to find inspirational, heroic and influential figures, but the real findings turn out to be more nuanced — and human. As a checkered example, the name of Benedict Arnold makes an appearance on a side branch of my family’s ancestor chart. Regardless of our origins, I believe that one of the most defining and unifying factors that every human being alive on the planet shares is that we are all descended from survivors, many of whom overcame significant adversity. While we certainly face many challenges in present day life, the reality is that we probably have access to opportunities far beyond what our ancestors might even have imagined. I sometimes struggle to remain optimistic about the future, but think we still have a lot to be thankful for and believe we can gather some positive reassurance from the unique contributions and perseverance of those who came before us — from royalty to laborers and everyone in between. Paul Dols is photojournalist/website editor for Press Publications. He can be reached at 651-4071238 or photos@presspubs.com.
Loss of local newspapers threatens democracy
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f you’re reading this column in your local newspaper, congratulations! Just by skimming your eyeballs over this page, whether it’s in print or online, you’re doing a vital service for your hometown, and for democracy as a whole. (Go ahead and take the rest of the day off.) It’s no secret that local journalism is in trouble, and has been for quite some time. to a Movers and According 2017 report from Pew Research Shakers the Center, the weekday circulation Lata Nott for U.S. daily newspapers has been on the decline for 28 consecutive years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that between 1990 and 2016, the number of news- paper employees in the U.S. declined from 456,300 to 183,000. Despite the vitriol that publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post attract from the Trump administration, it’s not the national news media outlets that we need to worry about. Their subscription numbers are on the rise. It’s the smaller newspapers that serve local markets that are suffer- ing. Many are chronically understaffed. Some have shuttered altogether. A map created by the Columbia Journalism Review re-
agent for these revenue-generating projects, as mismanaged projects can be exposed by investigative reporters employed by the local newspaper. When a newspaper closes, this monitoring mechanism also ceases to exist, leading to a greater risk that the cash flows generated by these projects will be mismanaged.” In other words, local newspapers provide a public good, one that can be measured in dollars and cents. The problem is that today’s marketplace doesn’t really reward them for this. A listicle about amazing dogs will always generate more ad- vertising revenue than coverage of a city finance committee meeting. (You know which one you’re more likely to click on. Just admit it to yourself and move on.) But the latter article could actually prevent municipal corruption. Even if no one reads it, public officials are more likely to behave ethically when they know they’re being monitored. As citizens, we tend to take this effect for granted. Maybe we need to stop thinking about our local newspapers as businesses that need to turn a profit and start thinking about them as utilities that we need to finance for our own good. Lata Nott is executive director of the First Amendment Center of the Freedom Forum Institute. Contact her via email at lnott@ freedomforum.org, or follow her on Twitter at @LataNott.
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veals that communities all across the United States have been “left with no daily local news outlet at all.” What’s the cause of all these news deserts? It’s the internet (to paraphrase the Simpsons, “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems”). Local newspapers lost print subscriptions when people started reading the news online (and came to expect it to be free). They lost another major source of revenue when their classified sections were supplanted by Craigslist. Their digital editions have to compete for eyeballs and advertising revenue with websites that traffic in national scandals, political commentary and cat videos. This isn’t just a financial hardship for your local newspaper. According to a new paper co-authored by three professors of finance, it’s a financial hardship for your entire town. The researchers looked at cities that lost newspapers between 1996 and 2015, and found that within three years of a newspaper’s closure, the costs for municipal bonds and revenue bonds increased for these cities. Here’s how they explained the connection: “Revenue bonds are commonly issued to fi nance local projects such as schools and hospitals, and are backed by the reve- nues generated by those projects...These bonds are rarely regulated by the state government. A local newspaper provides an ideal monitoring
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