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Shortly after the recently announced closure of The Vindicator left the Mahoning Valley reeling, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, stood on the U.S. Senate floor to deliver heartfelt words about the importance of community newspapers and local journalism.
"When local newspapers close, everyone suffers. Local newspapers know their communities better than anyone," he said, and continued on about local journalists' important role of holding public officials accountable and telling stories about things like local impact of federal policies, about General Motors' reduction in shifts long before the plant closed when the national media swooped in, or how the opioid crisis has devastated our area.
While Brown was speaking largely about the Vindicator's role in the Mahoning Valley, the things he said about the value of community journalism could easily be applied to any town in Ohio or America.
"These journalists care about the cities and the towns they serve. They hold those in power accountable, whether it's local government or a city's business leaders," he said.
And that's exactly why we do it every day -- not to see our bylines in print or for any kind notoriety. We certainly don't write to please our sources -- the very people we must go back to face every day, even after we've written stories questioning their decisions or being critical of their actions in efforts to hold them accountable.
No, we report and write for the residents who live in the communities where we live.
In December, National Public Radio reported on the impact of the closure of another paper, the Rocky Mountain News, Colorado's oldest newspaper. At the time, investigative reporter Laura Frank talked about leaving her newsroom for the last time and peering over the stacks of documents she was about to leave piled on her desk. Each represented some issue that she thought needed to be investigated.
Three finance professors -- Dermot Murphy, Paul Gao and Chang Lee -- also recently conducted an in-depth study on the effect newspaper closures have on their communities. The study determined that the closure of local newspapers generally brings an end to investigative reporting, often with no one stepping in to fill that void. Looking specifically at municipal borrowing, the study found, for instance, that borrowing costs for governments increase. It also became more costly for taxpayers to fund local schools and other projects. Communities' finances suffer and ultimately, so do the taxpayers footing the bills.
We believe strongly that no community should go without its daily newspaper, and that's why we have announced plans to develop a Mahoning County edition to serve the readers in Youngstown and other nearby communities that need a newspaper for coverage of their government, for other human interest and interesting stories, and for entertainment. We will include Mahoning County obituaries and, of course, high school sports.
We intend to begin publishing our Tribune Chronicle Mahoning County edition beginning Sept. 1, the day after The Vindicator's planned end to production. We, of course, are adding resources to enable us to accomplish those goals without any negative effect on the Trumbull County coverage we already offer to our dedicated readers here.
And at the end of the day, we know that growing our coverage not only provides that critically important service to all readers of the Mahoning Valley, but it also makes us, as an organization, stronger so that we can continue to do it in the long run.
"Too many people in this country already undermine the work that journalists do, or worse," Brown concluded on the Senate floor. "We see reporters restricted. We see journalism vilified. We see reporters even threatened, all for getting up every day and doing their jobs honorably. ... It's time for us in the White House and in this Congress to stand up for the free press, to stand up for community newspapers, to stand up for local journalists who are vital to the fabric of cities and towns like Youngstown all across this country."