Our greatest competitive advantage isn’t technology

Every few years, our industry finds itself chasing the next thing.

First it was websites. Then Facebook. Then Twitter. Then video. Then SEO. Then newsletters. Now it’s artificial intelligence.

By AUSTIN LEWTER, TCCJ director

Each innovation arrives with promises that it will either save newspapers or destroy them. Sometimes, depending on who’s making the pitch, it’s somehow both.

I’ve found myself thinking lately about Neil Postman.

Postman wasn’t a newspaper publisher. He was an educator and media critic who spent much of his career asking how technology changes not just the way we communicate, but the way we think.

In his 1992 book, “Technopoly,” he argued that America had become a culture where technology was no longer simply a tool.

Instead, technology had become the authority. If a machine could do something faster, we assumed it was automatically better. If new information was available instantly, we assumed it was automatically valuable.

In other words, we stopped asking whether technology served us and started allowing it to tell us how to live.

I don’t know that Postman could have imagined smartphones, TikTok or ChatGPT— but he certainly saw us coming.

Look around.

We measure success by clicks. We celebrate stories that “perform.” We obsess over analytics dashboards.

We refresh social media to see whether a post is gaining traction. Headlines are tested against algorithms before they’re judged by editors.

None of those things are inherently bad. I use many of them myself, but every now and then it’s worth asking a simple question.

Who is in charge?

Are we using technology to strengthen community journalism? Or is technology redefining what we believe journalism ought to be?

That’s an important distinction.

Community newspapers have always done work that doesn’t scale.

A city council meeting attended by 20 people.

A school board election that affects only one district.

A feature about a retiring teacher.

An obituary that tells the story of someone almost everyone in town knew.

A new business opening on Main Street.

A volunteer firefighter who has quietly answered calls for decades.

None of those stories are likely to go viral, but every one of them matters.

That’s because our business has never really been about attention. It’s been about stewardship.

We’re stewards of the public record. We’re stewards of local history.

We’re stewards of civic conversation. And, perhaps most importantly, we’re stewards of trust.

Those are things Silicon Valley can’t automate.

One of the quiet gifts newspapers provide is memory.

Facebook remembers what happened this morning. Newspapers remember what happened 50 years ago.

When questions arise about why a water line runs where it does, how a bond election unfolded, who first proposed a downtown project or what the community looked like before today’s residents arrived, people still reach for newspaper archives.

We’re writing tomorrow’s history every single week, and that’s no small responsibility.

Community newspapers also remain one of the few places where neighbors can still encounter one another as citizens instead of avatars.

A thoughtful guest column.

A well-reasoned letter to the editor.

Coverage of the Booster Club bingo night.

Photos from the county fair.

Recognition for a student who earned a scholarship.

These aren’t just stories. They’re fabric of a community’s identity.

Technology excels at delivering information. Community newspapers excel at providing meaning.

The two are not the same.

None of this is an argument against innovation. We should embrace artificial intelligence where it helps us work more efficiently.

We should publish newsletters.

We should produce podcasts, videos and digital editions.

We should experiment with every tool that allows us to serve readers better.

But those tools should never become our mission.

The next time you’re looking at a dashboard full of analytics, remember there’s another metric that no software can measure.

Did your reporting help your community understand itself a little better this week?

That’s a tougher question than asking whether a story reached 10,000 people, and it’s also a far more important one.

Technology will continue to evolve. It always has. Our calling hasn’t changed nearly as much.

Tell the truth. Record the history.

Hold power accountable. Celebrate your neighbors.

Help your community know itself.

If we continue doing those things well, technology will remain what it was always meant to be — a tool.

Not the editor.

Austin Lewter is executive director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism, based at Tarleton State University. He also serves as instructor of journalism at the university and faculty adviser for the Texan News Service and J-TAC newspaper. Additionally, he is a working owner and publisher of several Texas weekly newspapers.