You know what’s going on

One of our staff members was called into jury duty in Pennington County during the month of October, and on the third-to-last day of said duty, they were summoned to the Pennington County Courthouse to see if they would be selected for the jury for an upcoming trial.
During one of the breaks in the action, we struck up a conversation with a woman who was also called to jury duty. It turns out she is from the extreme eastern part of Pennington County. She and her family are well-known ranchers in their parts, and all of her children, grandchildren, etc., attend or had attended Wall High School.
After the requisite discussion about high school sports and how her family is still involved in them, the discussion moved to newspapers. We expressed regret that Wall no longer has a newspaper. She expressed that same regret. For those who don’t know, Wall’s longtime newspaper, the Pennington County Courant, ceased operations last December. The former owners couldn’t find anybody to work there, nor could they find anybody to purchase it. So, they decided to close the doors. It left another town without a newspaper, and another news desert in a rural part of the state. The paper had operated for over a century before it closed its doors.
As she talked about the newspaper closing, she lamented that it was harder to know what was going on. She especially lamented that her high school athlete grandson was not getting coverage in the local newspaper. She felt he deserved it, and that their football team deserved it. She’s right. Wall is the top seed in Class 9B in the playoffs and is undefeated as of the time of this writing.
Even if the team wasn’t doing well, she is right. She’s also right about not knowing what is going on. Without a newspaper, the good people of Wall no longer know what is going on with their town council, their county commission, their school board, etc., unless they attend those meetings. The official historian, record keeper and government watch dog of the town, the newspaper, no longer does those things.
We’ve said it a hundred times in this space, but every time a town loses its newspaper, it loses its heartbeat. To hear from someone who is really experiencing it first hand, and how it has affected her and her family, really drove that point home. She doesn’t know what’s going on.
Here in Custer, we know what’s going on. All you have to do is pick up a copy of this newspaper, and you know what’s going on. Lately we have had to write about some less-than-pleasant things, but that’s part of our job just as much as it is to highlight all the great things. As was pointed out by a colleague, it’s not our job to make the community look good—it’s our job to notice the good that is here. We present information, both sides of a story, and let the public decide. That’s how it is, and how it should be.
As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for the feedback, whether it’s praise, constructive criticism or even plain old criticism. Regardless, it means you’re reading and you care. So do we. Long live print.