Taken for Granted

Recently I overheard a conversation between a couple while I was standing in a checkout line at a grocery store. They were lamenting the recent closing of a long-established restaurant in town. One stating how the place had “always been there” and how it was a popular choice to grab a bite or a drink before or after going to a nearby movie theatre. Now, where would they go? The other person agreeing but also sharing they had not been there “in ages.” . It’s easy to take for granted people, places, and things we believe will always be a part of our lives.

I started thinking about all the people, places, and things I have taken for granted over the years. I immediately thought of my mother who died in 2012, the fruit stand where I got one of my first jobs that burned to the ground in 1982 after 32 years in business, and the Sponge (a readily available form of birth control) pulled from the shelves after a decade on the market in 1994!

I could also add my youth to the list. I definitely took it for granted and it is definitely gone!

It is part of our nature, I think, to take for granted the things we have come to know and count on to always be there. Unfortunately, beyond waxing nostalgic, businesses need patrons to spend their dollars for the businesses to stay open.

Of course, as things change, not everyone and everything changes with it. There are plenty of obsolete people, places, and things that have given way to the changing culture – telephone operators, phone booths and the rolodex come to mind, as technology has mowed over them.

In the small community where I live, we have the privilege of reading a locally owned, almost daily newspaper and enjoy both an FM and AM commercial radio station. There is no denying that both have suffered greatly over the last decade or so. As advertisers move their marketing dollars away from print media and mainstream broadcasting, those entities have had to make difficult decisions around everything from equipment upgrades to staffing cuts.

The result is that there are less resources available to bring accurate and timely reporting to the community. It is natural to archive the obsolete, but there is also the opportunity to reinvent, shift and roll with the changes to remain relevant in this ever-changing world.

Both entities have worked to make the shift to having an online presence with web pages and social media feeds, but it should come as no surprise that both entities are struggling. With less paying advertisers they are in a bit of a catch 22 – less money means less resources to report on local features which translates to less readers and listeners who only read and listen for the local content.

It saddens me as I have worked for both media outlets and know how much those who remain care about the output and are working constantly to deliver value to the consumer, and in turn, to the advertisers.

Right now, we all seem to be in the complaining department. We complain about the lack of reporters attending community meetings and events. We complain about the inaccuracies delivered by inexperienced individuals who are likely new to the industry. Small markets like ours are a training ground for newly graduated journalists, so some will come only long enough to build a resume before moving on to a larger market, and who can blame them when the pay scale is nothing short of appallingly low.

I don’t think I am speaking out of turn when I say the state of our local media outlets is perilous. I hear nobody reads the paper or listens to local radio anymore, but it is simply not true (as is evident when we hear or read something and report back to our friends and neighbors) and it is more important than ever that local business support these last factions of independent reporting and that community members lead their support through subscriptions or by letting business owners know you heard them on the local airwaves or saw their ad in the local publications. We throw our dollars at the arts and pets because we value them. We need to do the same with our local media sources through advertising and solicitation.

While our community has come to rely on one internet news source, that source cannot be everywhere either. Recent cuts to our local newspaper mean this column will only be published on the last Thursday of each month. I’d like to think the financial resources will be better utilized, but the truth is that resources are simply being cut and the publication is doing what it can to prolong its existence.

The same struggle exists with our local, commercial radio station, with our public broadcasting stations and even with our online news outlet. It’s so important that we support our local media. Who is going to keep an eye out for us if they fail? We don’t want to rely on regional news outlets or social media.

When there is a local storm or fire or other tragedy, subscription radio and online newsfeeds are not likely to report on a community such as ours. We count on our local news outlets to bring us the most current and accurate aspects of whatever that local event may be from power outages to snow or rain events to fire to heaven forbid, an active crime, we need our local resources. And beyond tragedies, we need local unbiased media keeping an eye on our local government and tracking the actions of those we voted into office.

We need our local reporters to keep the public informed and to hold our local leaders accountable and to allow diverse opinions so we can make informed decisions free of government influence. It’s something we have had in our community since 1864.

We simply can’t afford to take it for granted.

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xo, Hollie