Random Thoughts

Wanda Garner Cash
TPA President 2004-05
The Baytown Sun

Newspapers play witness & troublemaker

Newspapers record history one day at a time. In community newspapers, that role as chronicler of current events gains even greater significance because size and proximity often allow editors the rare privilege to tell a man’s story from the beginning of his life to the end.

Those same factors exact a fierce accountability and demand an unbiased perspective. Unlike our counterparts at anonymous big-city dailies, community newspaper editors know our readers, recognize them at the ball park, at church, in line at the grocery store.

As we hold up a mirror to the communities we serve, striving to reflect the goodness of people, sometimes the reflections are less than positive.

And when the news isn’t good, the same proximity that provides access also gives us instant feedback. Our shared experience tells us that some folks believe it’s the newspaper’s fault.

That’s one of the basic tenets of newspapering that John Steinbeck learned firsthand during his stints as a reporter. In his memoir “Travels with Charley,” Steinbeck recounted newspaper assignments during which he witnessed mistreatment of migrant farm workers in post-Depression California.

Describing the negative reader reaction to his stories, Steinbeck said when people get caught doing something they’re not proud of, they come to believe that the witness is the one who caused the trouble.

As witnesses to history, newspapers fit Steinbeck’s description of a troublemaker.

I define my own newspaper troublemaking as someone trying to make a difference.

Throughout grade school and college, from a tiny weekly newspaper in the Hill Country to larger dailies and broader responsibilities, it has been a satisfying career, steadfastly devoted to grassroots journalism, holding up

that mirror and reporting news that helps people make smart decisions.

In the eight years my husband and I were weekly publishers, we fought off annexation and a crude oil pipeline, dispensed gardening advice and spotlighted 4-H winners, and along the way watched the town incorporate and grow.

In the same community, I later worked for a daily paper I had once railed against for being a complacent competitor guilty of press-release journalism. I took the job hoping I could make a difference.

And so it was with each subsequent opportunity as I moved from reporter to editor to publisher: telling the stories of a community, celebrating the wondrous, striving to enlighten. Ever a witness. Holding up that mirror so communities could appreciate their shining moments and polish away the tarnished spots.

I believe that’s what all of us in community newspapering strive toward.

In spite of wags who say editors and reporters seek out the sensational, juicy stories just to sell papers, I don’t know of any legitimate newspaper man or woman who approaches the job that way. (Of course, neither do I know any who would turn down a great story that might also happen to sell additional newspapers.)

Even when we must report the sad, the nefarious, the ugly, something good usually will result: Overthrown corruption, resolution of conflict, a triumph of spirit.

It’s this very spirit that my wise predecessor Willis Webb says embodies the “brotherhood of community newspapering,” each of us working hard to make a difference in our own small corner of the world.

And as long as this brotherhood remains loyal to what’s best for our communities, history will define newspapers as witnesses — and troublemakers.

I’m looking forward to it.