My husband bemoans the lack of local newspaper reporting. There are still a couple of reporters, but our print news now comes mostly from the USA Today Network. As a former newspaper employee, going back to having a paper route when he was twelve, he despises reading the news online, even if it’s mostly the obits.
Newspapers have changed so much since he was a paper boy tossing the rubber-banded, rolled logs just so onto the porches after school each day and collecting forty cents each week from all his customers, so he could bike to Pizza King to order a submarine sandwich.
Back then, the local news and features pages had a distinct charm. I’d argue that the charm they exuded built a sense of community. Newspaper readers knew what was happening in the area and took pride in it.
I’d also argue that newspapers did a far better job of building community awareness than a city or county-based Facebook group where many members like to make jokes in poor taste about missing animals and others’ hardships.
A hundred years ago, local news was a mainstay of many small newspapers. I’ve found several useful local news columns and advertisements while researching family history or a random fact for my historical novel.
For instance, In the Tri-County Banner out of Knightstown, Indiana, on Friday, June 23, 1911, I found a blurb about a couple who visited an aunt in nearby Carthage. Below it, I discovered that my four-times great uncle Milton Edwards “has had a telephone put in.” What a surprise to find him mentioned!
Why would anyone care about Milton’s new technology purchase? Well, perhaps because he was a county commissioner. People with concerns could contact him more easily by phone than by buggying over to his farm north of Raysville.
Tri-County Banner, Jun 23, 1911
The report from Charlottesville, just 4.6 miles west from Knightstown along the National Road, included thirty-two updates about residents traveling to visit friends and family, to attend funerals and weddings, and even to visit Butler College!
All kinds of information was found in the Banner. Down a few column inches, is a short report about the dry spell up at Shirley, Indiana. It seems the last good rain was on April 8, and this drought was impacting the local potato crop.
Okay! Good to know that potatoes might be a little harder to come by in another month or two. And probably be more expensive, as well.
Tri-County Banner, Jun 23, 1911
Would these local tidbits of information be newsworthy today? Well, it depends on their venue.
I see many social media posts about travel events, dinner gatherings, and birthday parties among family and friends. And they usually include pictures. They’re not much different from the Tri-County Banner, except for the worldwide reach of Facebook.
In the early 1970s, my Mom was a non-traditional elementary education major at Ball State’s Teachers College. I wonder if she remembered the appeal of the small-town newspaper when she wrangled most of the kids along our country road to try out her new gelatin-based, personal, single-page ditto copier.
I was 11 years old in late July of 1971 and bored with summer bicycling and fort-making, running under the sprinkler, and playing in the old hay mow. My mom, entrenched in her undergraduate elementary education classwork, came up with a project for us. The Benton Bugle!
Several of us kids were assigned to be reporters. We gathered news from residents up and down the country road. Of course, the easiest news to collect was from our relatives- parents, and grandparents. But we also had to make cold calls on neighbors we didn’t usually talk to and really didn’t know other than to nod to while we whizzed along on our bikes. Luckily, most of them were older. Maybe they remembered the hometown newspaper columns, too. They were happy to provide information about who was visiting them and when. Talking to adults was itchy for us, but it was good practice in social etiquette and taking notes.
After the interviews came the tricky part: writing the news articles. I don’t remember ever learning how to write anything that was timely in school. Actually, I don’t remember writing at all. Maybe something about our favorite holidays to put up on a bulletin board with a construction paper model of a pumpkin or Santa face.
No, this was a different kind of writing. We had to get our facts correct because, for the first time ever, we had a real audience. Not just the teacher who gave us our grade and marked our misspellings.
The pressure was on to make The Benton Bugle informational and fun.
We collected travel information, stories about new pets and a new car, as well as information about house and dinner guests. Neighbors told us about their new jobs and injuries. We even wrote a movie review of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Once the articles were written, Mom typed them up for us. None of us knew how to use her heavy gray manual typewriter. Her fingers flew!
Seeing too much empty space on the draft, we decided to include classified ads. We remembered which neighbors had signs in their yards for something to sell. That helped fill the page.
Then we decided to include some visuals. No one had a camera with photos that could be duplicated, so we problem-solved. My older brother and my artistic friend agreed to create a couple of filler comics for the inaugural edition.
Finally, it was time to see the finished product. After the sheets of paper were lifted from the gelatinous box of fluid, with that oh, so intoxicating smell, they were clothes-pinned up to dry. We waited and then watched in awe as Mom pressed the other side of the paper onto the gel. Poof! We had a two-sided newspaper!
Now, all we had to do was sell them.
Mom rigged up some kind of newspaper bag for us, probably out of an old bedsheet, and we rolled up the papers and placed them inside, so they would look more like a real newspaper. We hopped on our Stingray knock-offs and canvassed the neighborhood. Up and down the road we pedaled, selling the latest news from Benton Road.
I don’t remember how much the newspaper sold for, but they were like proverbial hotcakes. The only copy I have left was surely a test version, printed on discarded Warner Gear stationery from my grandpa.
Unfortunately, The Benton Bugle was only in print for Volume 1, Issue 1. I suppose we had brain fatigue from this multi-dimensional venture- writing is hard work! Or maybe Benton Road just wasn’t a happening place. By the time something new was news, we were getting ready for Labor Day weekend, our last fling before school started.
Those were the days!
Our writing was fun, it had an authentic purpose, and it made us a little cash on the side.
It also kept us problem-solving, learning to talk to adults in meaningful ways, and using persuasion in our sales strategies. Pretty good lessons for summertime!
Would students today create a neighborhood newspaper? Maybe not. Too many concerns about sharing travel information. But could they create a classroom blog that focused on something interesting? Sure!
I say, give students an authentic reason to write, teach them the skills they need, and watch them flourish. And I bet they’ll remember their own Benton Bugle fifty years later, too!
