The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-07-28
How Your Local Paper Helps You
and How You Can Help 1t.

We believe every farmer should
take at least one of his local or county
papers. If he does not, he can
scarcely expect to keep up with the
happenings og his own neighborhood
and the doings of his own acqualn-
tances, and while we would not have
any reader of ours limit his interest
to the things that are going on I'M
mediately around him, he is certainly
not well-informed man if he is ig-
norant of these things.
This, then, is one reason why you
should subscribe for, and pay
for, and possibly write for and
advertise in your local paper. An
other reason is that a good paper
in any town or county is a positive
force in the upbuilding of that town
or county. A good paper is one OF
the surest indications of, and the best
advertisements for, progressive
community; and it is impossible for
any editor to make a good paper If
he does not have the support of the
people for whom the paper is made.
The local paper may also be a
source of direct financial benefit to
you. To say nothing of what its ad-
vertising columns may be worth to
you, either as buyer or seller, cases
are always arising when it is posi-
tive saving of time and money to
know Just what is being done by
ones neighbors, or ones county Of
fcials, or the business men with
whom one has to deal. Next to a
telephone, a really live local paper
will do more than anything else in
keeping you in touch with your local
market.
for these reasons, and many
others that might be given, the local
editor has a right to expect your
patronage and your cooperation. In
return there are some things you
have right to expect of him.
In the first place, you have right
to demand that he keep his paper
clean-that he make it fit reading
matter for your family. If more
space is developed to scandals and
murders and sensational fake sto-
ries than to the really important hap
penings of the day, you not only have
right, but it is your duty to protest.
These things are not news, though
many editors think they are, and
others publish them because they
think that people want to read about
them.
You should give the more hearty
support to your county paper if it's
advertising columns are clean-it it
refuses to carry whiskey, patent med
icine, and fraudulent investment ad-
vertising. No farmer should sub
scribe for any paper of general cir
culation that carries such advertis-
ing, and he has a right to insist that
his county paper shall not only re-
fuse the more vicious of such adver-
tising, but completely purge itself
of all such as rapidly as its support
will permit.
Then you have right to demand
that your editor tell the news as it
is. He has a perfect right to pres
ent his views with all the force he
has in his editorial columns, but
when he presents anything as news
he must have it just as accurate
just as free from personal or parti-
san views-as possible. The editor
who permits his personal or political
feelings to color his news columns
is guilty of an actual immortality.
A third right you have is to de-
mand that your local paper give the
most of it's attention to local hap
enings and local problems. 1t is the
special business of Rural County
News, to tell what is happening in
Rural County and to aid in this coun-
tvs development and progress. Its
views on the tariff or the Congo slave
question may be interesting and valu-
able, but it can probably do more
good by giving this space to helping
have the back alleys of Ruralville kept
clean, or by interesting the farmers
of Rural County in the institute thai
Will be held for their benefit this
summer.
Insist, then, that your paper deal