The best kind of newspaper, we think, is the one that’s sitting on your table. The one that’s been thumbed through, with a classified ad circled, a coupon clipped out, and a ring of dried coffee where you laid down your mug.
It’s self-serving to ask you to read the newspaper, but we hope that you do, and we hope that you value professional journalism, whether in your community newspaper or across the media spectrum.
The Nanaimo News Bulletin and Black Press are participating in the Journalism Is campaign, launched nationwide last month. Newspapers, media companies, unions and journalism schools are among the partners in the project. The intent is to try to mobilize media consumers around the importance of professional journalism.
Media is changing, rapidly and inexorably. Social media presents us with news and views, in 140 characters or fewer, all day, every day. There are infinite scraps of information and misinformation at our fingertips.
And that’s why we think professional journalism is more important than ever. Reporters seek the facts and the truth and when we tell stories, we try to tell the whole story. We try to tell it fairly and accurately. We wish to protect the public interest and demand accountability – comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, as the saying goes.
The Bulletin, Black Press, and media across the country employ journalists who are committed to all these ideals. We have drive and desire and we will take the initiative and the responsibility to tell the stories that matter to communities – your stories, our stories. To us, that’s what journalism is.
To media consumers, all we would ask is that you continue to read with a critical and discerning eye, write letters to the editor, engage, think. Thumb through the paper. Circle classified ads, clip coupons, spill a little coffee, but most of all, read.