Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1914-07-16
THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER.

@#@@#@ THE LOCAL NEWSPAPERS.
Editor / d. Aldrich, of the Big Stone Headlight, recently dis
cussing the province of the weekly newspaper, gave expression to
some simple truths upon the subject. We are merely celebrating
upon some features touched upon by him.
The recounting of scenes and incidents and particulars with
respect to people and things is what the newspaper lives upon. 1t Is
what sustains and upholds the calling of the local newspaper.
The daily newspaper-the great so-eaIled metropolitan sheet,
dealing with the happenings and the people of the worlds perform
ing within the field of its operation, within the sphere of its influence,
The same service that the small rural weekly is rendering within
the scope of its radiation, so to speak.
The rural weekly that branches out into a daily is only seeking
to enlarge its field a trihe, and as the town grows and it develops
strength it but radiates a little further-that is all.
Naturally as it widens its field it gives less attention to small de-
tails in any given locality. For this reason the metropolitan paper
can never take the place of the local newspaper, for which there will
always be a local demand.
Now and then the metropolitan newspaper-sometimes even the
small imitator thereof-makes the rural newspaper the butt of
Ifs ridicule or satire. bat, all the same, when 1T speaks of the doings
Of kings and queens. Of nations or of society and of the captains of
industry it is hut enanlating the methods of its country contempt
raries. The queens OF fashion and of society and the captains of
industry. 50 far As the raral newspaper is concerned, are those with
whom it comes daly IN contact The storekeeper, the contractor,
village dressmaker, the ballroom belle, are the captains of industry,
the fashion makers the soeial queens, and so forth, where the rural
paper circuiates.
much Z captain Of industry as is the president of the steel trust in
the educational opportunities within his district is as great a phil
anthropst IN q local way as is Andrew Carnegie with his system of
libraries in the country at large; the country lad who rushes into the
whirhng pool and drags from impending doom his playmate is none
The less q hero because he fails to draw the Nobel prize for heroism;
1hs. girl budding into young, womanhood, perhaps, who succeeds her
mother & z caring for an orphaned family and thus becomes a help
mate TO- her sorroWlng father, is deserving of as much commendation
as Is the Foremost champion OF the rights of women in general.
But do We ever see anything concerning that farmer, that rural
rhilanthropist, or that country lad, or that noble girl, in the metro
poitan pressf II we ever do, the name is linked with hat of some
#sreat man or woman, some king or queen, some ~world.famed genius.
No, we must look TO the local newspaper, the rural weekly, most
likely. for these things.
It IS the country newspaper that supplies us with the local in
formation which the metropolitan press rarely brings to our attention
Az y we shall find something interesting about the farmer and his
hoe something about the baby whom we know and its ragged rag
coll; when Joe and Nell are going to be thtched for life for better
or worse; when Farmer Jones begins to shnck his corn; who found
the first red ear at the husking bee and what luscious fruit the finding
Hereof brought forth; when Jennie came home from college and
yho went down to the depot to meet her when Mildred baby cut
afs. first tooth and when another is expected; what Grandpa Jones
stumbled his toe against and what he said when he did 1T, and so on, ad
lipitnm nd minimum, or any other kind of an ad.
The rural newspaper may have the sphere Of its Influence some
What circumsenbed BY the metropolitan press, but the. latter, in the
very nature OF things, will never take the place of the former.
there will always be ad emand for the newspaper that deals in the
ihangs that come home to us day by day.