Community newspapers have taken a beating in the last ten to fifteen years. A site called
newspaperdeathwatch.com monitors the carnage... and there's a Wikipedia list of papers in 42 states which are shut down. But online news has been blossoming – and few online news sources have become the go-to source of community news as suddenly as the Watershed Post in New York's Catskill Region. The Watershed Post was just a year and a half old when Hurricane Irene blasted through the area... and while most news organizations were cut off, the Watershed Post became an essential source of local news. Editor Lissa Harris is one of the founders.
Up next, the editor of an online news monitoring site who looks for the news you haven't heard.
When it's hard to find news without a point of view, a skeptic can be your best bet for, as one news organization likes to put it, keepin' 'em honest. ?Citizens for Legitimate Government is a news monitoring site that definitely has an opinion – but their efforts to watch the media and hold government accountable can be invaluable. Editor Lori Price said the stories she finds that mainstream media ignores often get noticed once she posts them.
Finally, a paper holdout in an e-book world. Wendy Welch has written a memoir about what it means to open an independent bookstore at a time when physical books seem to be disappearing. Allison Quantz reports.
That’s our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance. Our theme music is by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock.
