This is Sunshine Week, a time when news organizations and other groups in both public and private sectors emphasize the importance of open public records and meetings that allow the sun to “shine the light” on government business.
National Newspaper Week, another time for newspapers to inform communities of the important work they do, doesn’t come around until October. That observance would be best suited for my message here, but it’s a long way off, so I thought it important to share my thoughts now following last week’s announcement that the Glade Sun is going from free circulation to paid subscription.
Publisher Bill Atkinson listed his reasons for the change, among them rising costs to produce and distribute the paper. What struck me, though, was where he wrote that some readers said they would be willing to pay for the paper if the popular inserts “The Scene” and Cumberland Now magazine came with it again. (Those two publications stopped being mailed with the Glade Sun last September in a cost-saving move.)
So those publications will be inserted with this newspaper once again under the paid subscription plan.
It is well known that newspapers everywhere have been struggling for many years to stay alive. Fact is, many aren’t surviving. On average, two newspapers die each week across the country, leaving residents in the dark about the operations of their local governing bodies and depriving them of other news happening in their communities, such as the work of volunteers who give of themselves to help others in need.
I have written this before: We are fortunate to have a newspaper that keeps us informed of local news that affects our daily lives. For a newspaper these days, the Glade Sun is chock-full of information we need and want, page after page. We are well-informed of what is going on all around us.
It speaks well of a community where at least some residents accept the reality that the key deliverer of local news will no longer be free and yet they are willing to pay for it to keep getting it.
I hope enough people support the Glade Sun’s strategy in trying to remain a viable, essential source of local news and other information for us.
Imagine the alternative without the sunshine. No, let’s not.
• • •
Keith Robinson is a retired journalist and freelance correspondent for the Glade Sun.