About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 13, 2009)
PAGE 4, APRIL 13, 2009, THE ISLANDER Pi Rl c -o D I I Ml Ol . tv i v ll Opinions Why Local Newspapers are the Basis of Democracy By John W. Whiteheod Publisher's Statement THE ISLANDER (USPS 002430), A member of the Georgia Press Association and Glynn County’s only weekly newspa per is published 51 weeks a year for $20 per year in Glynn County and $22 per year in the United States outside Glynn County by Permar Publications, Inc., 3596 Darien Hwy. Suite 6, Brunswick, GA 31525. Periodicals postage paid at Brunswick, GA. Contents of The Islander, including advertising, may not he reprinted or reproduced in any form without written permission of the publishers. POSTMAS TER send address change to The Islander, P.O. Box 20539, St. Simons Island, GA 31522. Publication Deadline Publication Date: Every Monday Deadline: Thursdays, 12 PM for ads and news copy for the following Monday’s edition. Holiday Schedule On Monday Post Office holidays, The Islander is printed on the Friday before. 2009 Post Office Holidays Thursday, January 1 - New Year's Day Monday, January 19 - MLK Birthday Monday, February 16 - Presidents Day Monday, May 25 - Memorial Day Saturday, July 4 - Independence Day Monday, September 7 - Labor Day Monday, October 12 - Columbus Day Wednesday, November 11 - Veterans Day Thursday, November 26 - Thanksgiving Day Friday, December 25 - Christmas Day Holiday Deadline: Wednesdays, 12 PM for ads and news copy for the following Monday’s edition. Mission Statement: to publish the truth without fear or favor. Established 1972 Matthew J. Permar - Publisher Elise J. Permar - Publisher 1972-2003 Gertrude Bradshaw - Co-Editor 1972-1991 Managing Editor & Advertising Manager Pamela P. Shierling 912-265-9654 Production Manager Sarah Banks Long Church News Patty Gibson - 912-638-8844 Sports Jake Harrison Contributors Dave Barry, Clark Gillespie MD, Sonny Doehring, Roland Willis, Diane Bowen MD Phone Numbers 912-265-9654 • Fax - 912-265-3699 entail: ssislander@bellsouth.net www.theislanderonline.com Award Winning Newspaper 1975 1980 1985 1976 1981 1992 fiuAi'c 1977 1982 1999 1978 1983 2002 1979 1984 2008 "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and 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 With newspaper readership and circulation continuing to drop, more and more local newspapers are being forced out of business. However, as a recent poll by the Pew Research Cen ter indicates: "Many of those who say the closing of the local paper wouldn't make much, if any, difference in their communities note that there are other news sources available." Young people, in particular, are more inclined to get their news from the internet. According to Pew, only 27% of those born after 1976 read newspapers, as opposed to 55% of those bom prior to 1946. One person who believes the closure of the local paper would make no difference to civic life stated: "There are other forms of communication that are more important and easier to fol low. I either go to television or turn on the radio in my car." There are, however, serious prob lems with this fine of thinking. First, anyone who relies exclusively on television for knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake. TV news networks, having fallen prey to the demands of a celebrity-obsessed and entertainment-driven culture, provide viewers with what they want to see, rather than what is newsworthy. As a result, there tends to be little devia tion between the networks as to what stories are covered. Hence, more time is spent titillating and entertaining viewers than educating them about pressing issues of concern. Second, the emergence of the corpo rate media has ensured that a hand ful of corporations now control most of the media industry and, thus, the information dished out to the public by the national media. As one for mer Newsday reporter observed, "They serve their stockholders first, Wall Street second and somewhere far down the fist comes service to newspaper readerships. All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions." Finally, there are very important things happening at the local level of government and community life that national newspapers, television news and online news do not-and cannot- cover. Local newspapers tell us what's going on in our local councils of govern ment, in our schools, on our streets. As one journalist, remarking on the fact that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has ceased to exist as print news paper, recently observed, "If we lose local newsrooms, we lose the watchdog power of the media. The most disheart ening part of seeing the physical Seattle P-I close is that only 20 of its reporters went to the website. Not only is that a lot of lost jobs, but that represents a lot of important news contacts lost. That represents a lot of carefully cultivated sources gone. That represents a lot of shady, lazy, or dishonest politicians, corporations, and agencies that won't be watched as carefully as they used to be." The basic mission of the media is to serve as a check on the government. That is why the freedom of the press is such an integral part of our First Amendment. Our founders understood the vital importance of the press in maintaining an educated citizenry and a transparent government. However, even freedom of the press will not make much of a difference if there are no local newspapers keeping watch over what's happening in our own back yards. Local newspapers are the clarion call of democracy. "The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people," wrote French historian Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, one of the definitive works on early America. Tocqueville under stood that governmental power flows up from our local towns, cities and counties-that's where democracy hap pens. Hence, the Constitution begins with those three beautiful words: "We, the people." However, we've been deceived into believing that the most important governmental matters are housed in Washington, DC. In truth, the real government, the one that Abraham Lincoln spoke of as being a government of the people, by the people and for the people, is housed in small towns across this country. That's where democracy is being played out on an everyday basis. Unfortunately, in subscribing to the false notion that national news is somehow more relevant than local news, we have mistakenly bought into the idea that what the talking heads in Washington, DC, have to say is more important than the dialogue taking place between average Americans and their representatives at the local level. That's where we're failing in our democracy today. The founders did not establish a national government. Rather, America was intended to be a conglomeration of small governments, not one big government. In this way, the cities, towns and comities were to be the basis of American democracy. As Turn to Page 9 - Local newspapers Local Republican takes TEA party to Capitol Congressman Jack Kingston (R/GA-1) recently met with Ruby Robinson of Bruns wick who brought a TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party to the Capitol. Robinson, in town for a meeting of the National Fed eration of Republican Women, delivered tea bags to the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to signify her opposi tion to the $1.4 billion in net tax increases in the federal budget proposed by the Pres ident Obama and recently approved by the House Committee on the Budget. World Class Christian Education Online ST.MARKTS ACADEMY Learn. Grow. lead. truct 24/7 Access to One-on-One I Affordable Monthly Tuition Your Pace, Your Goals Grades 7-12 www.StMarksAcademy.ne
