→ Category encouragement
¶ While there may be disagreement among researchers (along with basic definition of terms), there is little room for doubt that the universe of non-national or “community press” has collapsed.
Pre-Internet ubiquity, meaning the decade prior to Y2K, an estimated 11,000 different ink-on-newsprint nameplates were in circulation. Sources such as the National Newspaper Association (NNA) and Editor & Publisher have identified numbers between of 8,500 and 9,500 weeklies, depending on how strictly differentiations between paid and free, and “community” are defined. Add 1,500 smaller and mid-sized dailies to reach the total referenced above.
Three decades later, the Medill State of Local News Report found that only 5,465 remained, of which 4,484 were weeklies.
Philosophically, the Tri-Community does not abide the notion that peer newspapers are the threat to any given nameplate. Judge each on its own merits and let the free market decide. On top of that, recognize that explaining the differential value of and evidencing that in practice is an aim which best serves all paper-paper news media.
The effort here is to encourage success among those in this category.
“Luther Heggs” was the name of a Walter Mitty-esque typesetter with dreams of becoming a real reporter for his midwestern hometown newspaper in 1966. Portrayed by the late Don Knotts in a Universal Picture release titled The Ghost and Mr Chicken, use of that name for this tag encourages survivors and newcomers who “bleed ink” to take their work most seriously — but not so much themselves.