The population demographics have remained relatively stable for generations in Plattsburgh. Certainly we are mindful of the readership and the community we serve, and the makeup of the area. So we do some things that other papers don't. That's our purpose. Because their audiences are much smaller, more specific, and more familiar, community media such as local newspaper, television, and radio operations must approach the news differently from their big-city counterparts.
Coverage is targeted to the needs and desires of a narrow audience.
Thus, happenings that might rate only a line or two, if that, in a metropolitan paper receive full-blown attention in the local media. The same issue also contained an article about a town governing board meeting, an interview with a construction worker alleging a chemical spill cover-up, information on a fatal airplane crash, and several pages of national and international news. That's going to be good, bad, and ugly. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the freedom of the press regardless of who opposes publication of specific stories. Running a successful newspaper is a balancing act of giving the readership what a free society needs to know as well as what it wants to know, even if these goals sometimes seem at cross-purposes.