Land’s sake

AMOMENT, if you will, Gentle Reader and Valued Subscriber. The news side of this outfit won’t read this until you do this morning. That’s the way things are at this newspaper, and any newspaper that wants to be taken seriously. Those of us in the opinion section don’t tell the newsroom what to report, and those on the news side don’t tell the opinion section what positions to take on that reporting, or what op-eds to publish. It’s the way things should be.

But we do have an opinion on the reports about the proposed purchase of land on West 32nd Street by the city of Little Rock. After the newspaper got ahold of the story about how the city was going to pay $460,000 for that land, and who owns the land (a municipal employee!) and how much the actual appraisals were for the acreage, (one was for $65,000 and the other for $85,000) we’ve come to this editorial position:

Thank goodness for those covering local news. And for this state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Yes, we’re tooting our own horn, or at least the newsroom’s horn. But as the number of local newspapers decreases across the country, and as the number of reporters decreases at the newspapers that are left, this story is probably something that would have got lost in the shuffle (of beats) in other cities.

The next time you drive to New Orleans, stop at a couple of Louisiana or Mississippi towns. Or even bigger cities. And see how many local bylines are in the local papers there. And we don’t mean a reporter who’s working hundreds of miles away but who gets a “local” byline in a sister paper owned by the same company. See how many local stories are in, say, Sunday’s paper by reporters living and working in that city.

You’ll not find many. These days, a lot of regional, state and local newspapers are just print versions of TV stations: following stories of car wrecks and sensational murder trials, and not much more.

The next time you drive along the East Coast, or to Houston, or go on a Florida vacation, count the number of bylines in the papers along the way. And reckon to yourself if those papers have enough people working the news to dig up something like a real estate sale to the city government of the sort our newsroom—and reporter Joseph Flaherty—found.

Remember this, too: It couldn’t happen without your subscriptions.

Thank you.