Look ahead

Sir Winston Churchill once remarked “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Hence we are delirious. This week marks TP Printing’s 50th anniversary and, along the way, we have dodged potentially mortal blows, including paper shortages, national economic collapses, a Farm Crisis, a hollowing out of rural America, power outages, disintegration of postal service, a global pandemic, political polarization and a pretty nasty tornado that tore off part of our Abbotsford office’s roof. By some miracle, we have survived it all and this week, just like every week for the past five decades, the King Press in our back room will print this week’s edition.

Here, at TP Printing, our journalists have won their share of awards, but the credit for this company’s long and ongoing success goes to you, the reader. We would be nothing without you.

You have access to a world of information on your mobile phone, but, still, you pick up a copy of this newspaper. We thank you for sticking with us year after year.

We celebrate our 50th year milestone at a time when newspapering is in tough shape across the nation. Since 2004, 1,700 weekly newspapers in the United States have closed. The business model of community newspapers is under attack from several fronts. Main Streets across the country have dwindled as a result of big box stores and on-line shopping and, in turn, community newspapers have fewer advertisers.

Internet companies like Google and Facebook have wooed away other advertisers. Various newspapers across the country have tried different approaches to keep community journalism alive. They have pursued a not-for-profit model.

They have done away with advertising and gone to higher subscription rates. It’s all an experiment in the lab not yet complete.

Despite all of this turmoil, we have not given up. In our anniversary, we rededicate ourselves to the mission of the community newspaper.

This mission is not to present information. It is to publish journalism. It is not to sensationalize.

Instead, it is to build community. It is not to get clicks. Rather, it is to tell the truth, knowing that the facts, fairly and ethically presented, will, in the end, sell plenty of newspapers.

We still feel newspapers play an important role. Newspapers tell you about next year’s village blacktopping project. They tell you about the overcrowded county jail. They tell you about the COVID-19 masking policy at your local school. And they even tell you who sunk the most baskets at last Friday night’s high school basketball game. In all these stories, they build community. They inform a local citizenry.

They give democracy a place to flourish, for the people’s will to be done.

So, reader, holding this week’s edition in your two hands, consider yourself an important person. You are that engaged, curious person who wants to know about the local community. You are that person who wants to sift through the facts to come to an independent opinion about current events. You are that person who will challenge your own convictions by reading this very editorial, understanding that challenge is healthy and good. You are our kind of person, a fellow journalist, except that you do the reading while we do the writing.

So, we hope we can continue earning our keep.

We hope that our journalism helps the people in Abbotsford and Colby make better decisions, both individually and collectively. We hope that the advertisements we print help local businesses do well. If we do, we don’t see how TP Printing’s future can be anything but bright. Let’s go there together.

Editorial by Peter Weinschenk, The Record Review