Keeping It Local

Your voluntary contributions make you our owners and enable us to deliver local news to all.”

Let’s hear it for living the good life on the Key Peninsula — where practically anything is possible when we work together for the common good.

At a recent Washington Newspaper Publishers Association convention in Everett, I joined journalists, photographers, editors and publishers working hard to adapt to rapidly changing conditions while producing quality newspapers people want to read.

You tell us our work is essential in person, over the phone, by email, and with sweet handwritten notes, cards, and letters of encouragement and praise. I’ve been embraced in bear hugs and even lifted off my feet once in a grocery aisle. We’re certainly not strangers after that!

Even people who tell us they don’t always appreciate everything they read in KP News say the newspaper matters because it fosters a sense of belonging through good stories about what happens here.

For me, the fun part of attending the convention each year is talking with other newspaper professionals. We learn from discussing the challenges of producing local news.

We proudly shared our successes, including our work with student journalists from local high schools — made possible by a scholarship fund that began with the generosity of one couple who believed in us. One of our students, 18-year-old Camri Clawson, won third place in the state competition against seasoned professionals. (And we took home 19 more; see our Page 1 story in this edition.)

Please don’t buy into the notion that newspapers don’t matter to young people. It’s simply not true. The convention was packed with twenty something interns and newcomers eager to learn and share. Young adults may be attracted to different subjects, but reading about people they know in their hometown can mean more than another social media post.

Although KP News is among the minority as a nonprofit publication in the WNPA, our success has helped inspire others to consider transitioning to community-supported nonprofit newspapers. That model can help sustain quality local news and healthy communities. I get phone calls from other news outlets every year asking how we do it.

It’s because our "owners" aren't  based in some faraway place with little knowledge of or attachment to the communities they serve. Your voluntary contributions make you our owners and enable us to deliver local news to all.

We have heard painful accounts from communities that have lost their local newspapers. We’ve seen longtime publishers ready to retire, only to close shop after failing to find buyers for the businesses they built over many years.

When a community loses its newspaper, neighbors can find it harder to keep up with factual information.  Gossip, misinformation, and speculation fill the gap. People lose sight of how local government works and where to turn for answers.

Effective government needs public scrutiny, from county and city decisions to the state and federal policies that shape the infrastructure people and businesses depend on.

Change can come slowly, despite our best efforts, or suddenly, without warning or time to prepare. Today, artificial intelligence is transforming how information is produced and shared, while familiar civic norms are being challenged. Those changes make trustworthy local reporting more important, not less.

We still live in a democratic republic, where voting is a constitutional right and a civic responsibility. It is easy to take that right for granted, but it is far too precious to surrender. Reliable journalism helps us understand the choices before us.

November is election season. It also launches our annual fundraising effort, strengthened  by NewsMatch, which will support us in amounts commensurate with yours. Key Peninsula News relies on local donations to keep publishing the newspaper you hold in your hands. Please consider a tax-deductible gift in whatever amount you are comfortable giving to support this ongoing work.

Thank you for the constructive input you give us and for whatever you can do to help sustain KP News.

The paper has long billed itself as “The Voice of the Key Peninsula.” But it is not our voice; it is yours.