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OPINION: Community tragedies hit close to home for publisher

June 22nd 1:26 pm | Jason Evans Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

During the past couple of week I have learned how hard it is to own the newspapers we own and cover regions so important to us. We bought and brought back to live these community newspapers because we knew they were important to so many people living in rural Alaska. We felt we were doing something good. And for the most part, it felt good.

But recently, there have been tragedies that affect many people that we had to report on and these are people I either knew personally, or I know their close friends and family. They are people we saw on the streets, we visited with their loved ones when we saw them in Anchorage or at the airport or at church. These are the people we had in mind when we bought the newspapers to begin with.

But reporting on news that makes us sad is not fun and not something I thought of when I restarted these papers. I even asked our editor if we could just not write a story on these, as I can imagine how hard it is to read the words about a lost loved one. She told me we had too, as these tragedies do affect so many people in our regions and that we need to report on it. She said it is important for the papers to be a record not only of our successes but also of loss. That's what makes them authentic records of an area, she said. It has been so difficult for me to watch and see this unfold and to know we also had to report on it. It gives a great deal of personal stress as I do not want to bring any more pain and sorrow to any family that has to go through so much already.

For the most part, I do not write the stories that go into the paper. Many weeks, I don't even read them before many of our readers see them. I might know what is coming up in this weeks issue, but even I don't see the stories until right before they are put into print. But I do hold a sense of responsibility of what our newspapers print. I feel accountable to people for the work we do and for ultimately what goes into our newspapers. That is why I feel the stress of reporting on tragedies and lost and I don't think there is anyway around that.

The best thing I could do is continue to bring people into our organization that care not only about journalism but also about rural Alaska and the people who look to us to report on what happens, both good, bad and even sad things that not only affect those involved, but also affect the people who report on it.

 


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