By Russ Bennett
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States.
The Valley Reporter newspaper is a necessary component of the fabric of the Mad River Valley communities. It helps to bind us all together. It is accountable unlike so many of the online forums, which do have communication and advertising value, but they have no journalistic standards and are generally micro slices of the overall pie called community. The Valley Reporter actually checks veracity and facts. We can follow our local governments through The Valley Reporter, which covers all of our select boards and commissions, school boards, elections and the many other civic organizations that serve our community.
They cover our local schools’ events and sports every week, what our businesses are doing and the editorial page features letters to the editor and an opportunity for us to share our opinions openly and respectfully with each other.
“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it offend nobody, there would be very little printed,” Benjamin Franklin, signer of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, newspaperman, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor and polymath.
The newspaper is actively recording the history of our community in real time, week by week. Births and deaths and public notices, the paper is the place where the public record is kept with its calendar of events along with historical flashbacks of the past. We don’t just live in the moment, we are all part of a running history and it is good to have that recorded.
All businesses and humans are fallible; the paper is the same and it is accountable. We can check the facts. The late Warren Select Board chair and farmer Rupert Blair, many years ago when the population was smaller and more rural and agrarian, said, “In a small town everybody knows what everyone else is doing; they just read the paper to see who got caught!”
The Valley Reporter (which is also digital and online and is researchable) is also a place for our local businesses to advertise their services and wares. The same businesses we often ask to financially support a school trip or families in need. We support local businesses, farmers, stores, services, restaurants. The Valley Reporter is a local business. We are in danger of losing many of our local businesses to COVID-19 and the collapse of our economy. Each of these businesses provides livelihoods to many, many families. We are all doing what we can to help each other. The Valley Reporter is one of those businesses that needs our help. The Valley Reporter is an essential service to all and the source of six jobs (with benefits) for six community members, all of whom live in The Valley and have deep historical knowledge of our community and love for it. We will not have a better community for the loss of The Valley Reporter – ask yourself how a community will talk to itself without a newspaper.
In this time of great need and quarantine and personal isolation, we need all the methods of interconnection and social congress we can get. We are all in this together; we all need each other. The paper is one of the ties that helps bind us all together. Please support The Valley Reporter by buying a yearly subscription, buy one for a friend or relative. Advertise if you can, or just plain send in a donation. There’s a PayPal button located on the website, www.valleyreporter.com.
Russ Bennett lives in Waitsfield.
