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Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

Last week, I wrote about the hours-long global outage on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, but what I didn’t realize at the time was that the outage came coincidentally in the middle of National Newspaper Week, which takes place annually to recognize the service of newspapers and their employees across North America.

There couldn’t have been a starker contrast that day between the downed social media platforms — and the chaos surrounding that outage — compared to the still-standing newspapers across the globe, whose journalists have worked around the clock for many decades to update communities on important events and issues.

Despite the roots many newspapers have in their communities and the sources of local knowledge they provide, many people have turned to social media sources for their news, which can often be an unwise decision because it is not as easy there to gauge credibility and even validity of some of the posters.

Though the distribution method for newspapers has shifted somewhat in recent years from being primarily a print source to now one that focuses on both print and digital formats, the goal remains the same as it always has: to educate, inform and entertain our readers and to be a reliable source of information you can trust.

If you’re reading this, I think it’s probably safe to say you support local journalism, but I ask that you consider doing more.

Remind your friends and neighbors of the value of local journalism in our community and in our democracy and of supporting it so it can continue for many years to come.

Local journalism, and particularly newspapers, serve as the community’s forum, not only for news articles and photographs, but also as a place to hear and learn about others’ opinions and for businesses to showcase their service to the community.

The key is continuing to make the newspaper relevant to all in the area.

To continue doing so, I’d like to know if there is something you don’t like about the newspaper? What things are happening that you would like to see continue? If you have ideas, we’d love to hear them.

Please email me at sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.