As we at The Augusta Press celebrate two months of daily publishing, we would like to take a moment to reflect on what type of newspaper we are and what we aspire to be. To put it in a nutshell, we are and strive to be a mirror on our community.
In the process of building The Augusta Press, we looked to other examples of our business model and found none. What we are attempting is a brand-new model of a subscription supported all digital model. So, far we have been a success and we thank you.
Something we have had to overcome in our two months of publishing, is that people are used to “partisan news.” Some expect a newspaper either to have conservative or liberal content. The pitfall there is that in mainstream media, to maintain that partisanship, some news organizations either ignore facts or twist facts like taffy to maintain their narrative. In other words, they manufacture fake news.
Currently, polls show that upwards of 70 percent of Americans do not trust the media. That fact is not only sad, it is a bit scary.
The trend for local newspapers has been for them to be absorbed by large national corporations, creating a hybrid where much of the “local” coverage is actually done by people outside of the community and content is published without regard for the audience or community.
While that may be the trend, we feel that a locally produced newspaper is superior because it is compiled by the people who live in our community and whose purpose is to serve our community, thus making The Augusta Press a mirror of the community we serve.
Recently, we did have a subscriber ask us to cancel his subscription because of an opinion column we published that was written by someone with different political beliefs. We regret losing that subscriber, but the columnist’s opinion was nothing more than that — an opinion — and the column met the standards for publication.
Publishing that column let us represent a particular perspective that is not always covered in our community. It let us be a reflection of our community.
When it comes to news gathering, no bias is allowed within our pages. All of our news articles are written by people who live and work in this community. We feel that local news is important to the average person’s life.
What goes on in Washington, D.C., does have an effect on people living in Augusta, but what is happening at the local level has much more of an impact on daily life.
President Biden’s immigration and energy policies do have an impact; however, the fate of the lock and dam and SPLOST here locally have a much bigger impact on local daily life. No local individual or group can have much of an impact on the national stage, but citizens can band together to make changes locally, and that is where our newspaper comes in as a tool of the citizenry.
The Augusta Press serves as both a mirror and a voice for the community.
Again, we want to say thank you for subscribing and making this newspaper model work. We know that word of mouth advertising is powerful and we hope you will continue to tell your friends about our newspaper and help us grow.
We feel that prior to our publication, Augusta was something of a “news desert” in some ways, and we are happily digging the oasis. We appreciate the community getting in there and digging with us.
