Yes, It’s True: Too many don’t care about local news

“But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.” — The late, great comedian George Carlin

As I write this, I feel like I’m under house arrest because of ice and snow in Houghton, Upper Peninsula. I am part of a two-person baby-sitting crew for grandson Corvid, while his dad, Robby, and mom, Sarah, are saddled with out of town commitments.

As gentle readers may be aware, there was no coverage of the Dorr Township Board meeting of March 24, nor was there any for the Wayland Board of Education work session and discussion March 28 about the Career Connections Academy.

It had to happen sometime. As I have said since the Penasee Globe went belly up in 2019, if I don’t show up for a public meeting, the public in general will not know what happened. I have become the only game in town.

“But nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”

To be sure, there are readers out there who do care, but they’re seriously outnumbered by the apathetic. This is why community journalism is on life support and prospects for its future are dim.

The former Grand Rapids Press, now known as MLive.com, has been pared down from being a daily newspaper to thrice weekly. Reporters, photographers and editors have been laid off, cut loose and given reduced hours of work because quite frankly, the news is non revenue-generating “straight matter,” in the assessment of the late Globe co-owner Helen Jane Helmey.

In a nutshell, the demise of print journalism over the last several decades has been the result of “follow the money” and “it’s a business decision.” It’s also a function of the changing of the times, and it appears it cannot adjust in order to survive.

Small town weekly newspapers are being condemned to the dust bin of history.

“Don’t tell me you are a community journalist until you’ve covered a Planning Commission meeting.” — David Simon, creator of “The Wire.”

It was just over 10 years ago that I decided to start Townbroadcast as a new idea in community journalism. My business plan was to eliminate the two biggest expenses, printing and distribution, and fly solo as editor and proprietor.

I worked with Myles Mittwol of New Jersey on the web page, which now is handled by Zack Wright in Florida, formerly of Hopkins. Wayland man JD Gonzales handled any possible advertising and locally has been webmeister. And I have several columnists who spice up the offerings.

But essentially, I am a one-man show, working the vast majority of the time out of my home and using the evil Facebook for tips. It has been my challenge to make this work without making a penny in income. After I retired from part-time at the Kalamazoo Gazette and being a bottom-feeder substitute teacher, I believed I could sit in front of that rotten box known as television and just wait to die, travel and go broke, or I could run my own newspaper in a different way than has been done before. The third option interested me the most.

I shall continue to do this rather than become bored at home.

Yet along the way I have made many enemies, some of whom refuse to cooperate with me in dissemination of information. Wayland, Hopkins and Martin football and basketball coaches and staff don’t lift a finger just to provide me with consistent information. Of course, there are exceptions, and they are appreciated.

I suppose it could be argued that I started out badly by offending the Wayland Chamber of Commerce and the athletic tribes, who circled the wagons around one of their own I called out as a bully. Know this: I do not cover Wayland High School swimming as an outcome of my lifelong hatred of bullying.

Also along the journey, I failed to get businesses such as the Gun Lake Casino, Robinson Dental and Harding’s to support Townbroadcast economically, but now that is neither here nor there. I continue to limp along with what I have.

Besides, I have absolutely no interest in a big advertiser deciding what I can or cannot publish. I don’t want to fall into the “follow the money” trap larger print and broadcast media have since the glory days of Walter Cronkite.

I rarely agree with the New Testament writings of Saul of Tarsus, aka the Apostle Paul, but he very perceptively once wrote, “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

I shall return in early April to resume regular duties. But I have no idea what the Dorr Township Board did Thursday last and I just wasn’t around for that discussion about the CCA program.

Please forgive me.

As the Firesign Theatre once claimed, “How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all?”