Column: Here's how we work to make you happier

The following is from the editor of The Sumter Item, Kayla Green: "Since 2005, more than 3,200 print newspapers have disappeared. They continue to vanish at a rate of more than two per week, including 130 in the past year alone. In their place, news deserts emerge. As of the newly released 2024 State of Local News Project, an annual analysis of the local news industry that tracks the closures, mergers and emergence of outlets, there are 206 counties across the United States that do not have access to any source for local news."

Thankfully, Lexington County is not a news desert, nor is it close to becoming one.

As a person who values news, whether it's news I reported on myself or not, I am so happy that the people of Lexington County (particularly those in the town of Lexington, Cayce and West Columbia) are not starved for local news. I'm thankful you have such a wide array of reporters working tirelessly to inform you, some from The State, some from The Post and Courier, some from The Twin-City News, some from various TV stations, and of course, some from the Chronicle.

This plethora of news sources, however, does not make the Chronicle any less valuable. We are the only news source in this area that lives throughout Lexington County with you and has a sole focus on YOU. We want to grow and not miss any story throughout this humongous county's 15 municipalities. There's a lot more reporting that needs to be done! As a small staff, it's impossible to be everywhere at once, but as we grow with your support, we'll be able to cover more stories that need to be told. Stories that improve quality of life throughout the county, throughout municipalities big and small, suburban and rural.

We need your support to accomplish this. To hire more reporters, to put papers in more areas throughout the county, to bring you news daily in a digital format.

The following is from a column I wrote for The Sumter Item last year that speaks to newspapers’ value in your everyday life (it has been edited for publication in this paper):

About 30 years ago, my older brother ate a plate of spaghetti at an event put on by the local fire station.

He was a toddler and got spaghetti sauce all over him, my mom told me, and he's a redhead, too, so he looked extra "adorable," in her words. So adorable that a photographer from the local paper took his picture and it was on the front page the next day.

My mom said it was one of the first color editions of that paper, so all the red, both from his hair and from the sauce, made for a good front page picture. She of course got a ton of copies and sent them to her parents and kept a few for herself.

My mom has five kids, so she's used to the messy yet adorable things kids do, so I wonder if she would even recall Adam covered in sauce at the fire station if the local paper hadn't captured it.
I think it helped her love our little hometown even more. And people knew us. "All those redheaded babies," my elementary school nurse used to say a lot when she'd see us at school events.

I love it when we, the Lexington County Chronicle, get to capture special moments like that here in Lexington County. A lot of those newspaper clippings will make it into scrapbooks, grandparents' mailboxes and frames above the fireplace.

I wrote a paper in college about how people who live in news deserts, which are areas without a local news source, are statistically more likely to have poor mental health.

I remember thinking that didn't make a ton of sense to me initially because I hear people say the news only headlines the bad. Murders, catastrophes, kidnappings and other heinous things.

True, those get the most clicks.

I've seen Facebook posts from people I know saying that they're taking a "social media hiatus" or a break from their phones because they're tired of reading negative things. I've felt that way before, too. I've wished that I could live out the ignorance is bliss cliche.

But what I learned from my research in college is that when communities are deprived of a local news source, then they're actually more susceptible to mental health issues because newspapers bring communities together.

A 2023 local newspaper study from America's Newspapers said that newspaper readers are actively involved in their communities. They attend local government meetings, downtown events and might even weigh in with an opinion column for an issue they care about. And newspaper readers have something to talk about with their neighbors.

And the more engaged one is with their community, the happier they are. The more fire station spaghetti events they attend, the more involved they feel.

Local papers also hold decision makers accountable. We make sure your city and county councils are working above board so that you know when they're considering an ordinance that might either make you love where you live more or less.

And we help affirm the identity of a community.

I have a heavy glass paperweight that commemorates my grandmother's journalism career.

1956 - 1986 is engraved on it. An even 30 years. Those dates say a lot about her. 1956 was the year my mom was born, so Grandmother had a baby and burgeoned into journalism in the same year.

She wrote features on locals that helped affirm that Connecticut town's identity. She wrote for a magazine and not a newspaper, but my mom said that she interviewed one man who, after the interview, said their conversation was a comfort to him after having lost his wife. Grandmother made her interviewees feel comfortable. And when they're comfortable, they're themselves, and then the journalist can get to work putting facets of their identity into words.

What we do is about you, our readers.

We want to write about what matters to you, and we want to write about you.

And I love worldwide outlets just as much as the next reader, but you know what's especially great about your local paper? The journalists live in that community, too. I go to the same grocery stores my readers do. I get my oil changed at the same place my readers do. I'm in the same coffee shop line as my readers. And I love it.

Subscribing to your local paper keeps it local.