Reprinted from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Newsletter, written by Roland Thompson, executive director for Allied Daily Newspapers.
Newspapers are an absolute necessity for economically healthy and civically active communities.

I believed this before recent events, but now I know it to be completely true. I have seen it with my own eyes.
A family friend passed away a few weeks ago and we journeyed to our hometown to attend the memorial service.
The town is small and has not grown much since I waited for the school bus under the Pop. 1,482 sign through most of the 1960s, but it was a vibrant and vital little burg and my folks owned the weekly newspaper at the heart of that small city.
In actuality, the newspaper owned us, because week after week, as the seasons revolved and the years came and went, we served it a steady and varied diet of public notices, news, sports, police reports, ads, weddings, meetings, births, deaths, graduations, honor rolls, military enlistments, fires, accidents, lots of civic improvements, awards, elections, big fish, homecoming queens, old timers, fundraisers and anything else we deemed interesting that would hold still long enough to have a photo taken.
This announcing and recording went on in that small town at the little newspaper through the terms of 23 US presidents, two world wars, two world depressions, countless booms and busts, a major epidemic, floods, fires, a devastating volcano eruption and all of Washington’s statehood.
Clippings of great events both large and small were saved in scrapbook, bibles and wallets.
Our newspaper went to subscribers all over the county and to our town’s sons and daughters all over the world.
Now, it no longer does.
In attending the funeral in my hometown, I lived through an experience similar to the one at the heart of the popular Christmas film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Much like Jimmy Stewart’s character in the film, I got a chance to see what my little “Bedford Falls” would be like if the little newspaper wasn’t there for the community.
My first inkling that things had changed began when I asked about people I had expected to see who were not in attendance.
I was told it was harder to get the word out about funerals and other local events in a way that the items would be in a much larger daily newspaper circulation in the area.
Not everyone subscribes to the large newspaper and items about the small town tend to be lost in larger context.
After the service I continued to get an earful from my old friends about the decline of community institutions because of a lack of publicity, reporting and interest.
School events are more poorly attended and bond levies are more difficult to pass. The chamber of commerce has disbanded. City council meetings are more sparsely attended and vacancies on the council and other public boards and commissions are more difficult to fill.
Attendance at school sporting events has thinned. The organization of fundraisers and volunteer activities is hampered by the inability to publicize, but most important is the steady decline in the small town’s business community because of the lack of inexpensive local advertising to promote local trade.
Many small towns all over the county are in decline. Much of it can be laid at the feet of economic consolidation, improvement of the road system providing easy access to big box discount stores and the hundreds of TV channels and video rentals of in-home entertainment cutting into community activism and attendance at community events.
But one of the fingers in the dike protecting the life of small communities is the newspaper. The paper connects people to each other and their community.
It shows them they and their families are important, not just to themselves, but to their neighbors and friends.
It praises good judgement; it vents complaint; it voices opinions; it calls for action; it draws volunteers; it brings donations; it interests voters: it informs the electorate, it encourages commerce; it creates markets; it exposes misdeeds; it validates effort; it focuses on grief and it applauds achievement, but most importantly, it breathes life into a community.