A New York Times editor and Marshwood alum says he plans to add South Berwick’s new online newspaper, the South Berwick Reporter, to his daily reading routine.
In a video he made about the importance of local journalism, Alex Kingsbury, a 1999 Marshwood High School graduate, also described the relationship between local reporting and democracy.
“Local journalism and with it our democracy are in real peril,” Kinsgbury said. “That danger is not because Americans have fallen out of love with democracy. It’s because they have lost some of the most important levers to democracy. Perhaps the most important thing to self-governance is a source of reliable information.”
Kingsbury created the video to capture a speech he intended to give at the Reporter’s kickoff party earlier this month. He was ill that day, however, and unable to attend the event virtually as planned, so he instead made a video of his talk.
Former Foster’s Daily Democrat Editor Mary Pat Rowland was keynote speaker at the event, which drew about 50 people to Spring Hill function center in South Berwick.
In talking about the relationship between democracy and journalism, Kingsbury said, “A shared understanding of the state of the world is a good place to start. And that is where local news comes in – a common reality we all share.”
Kingsbury, who at age 11 worked as a paperboy delivering Foster’s Daily Democrat, noted that if the sexier part of journalism covers scandals and corruption, its other role is just as important.
“The unsexy role is that it informs local government about what is going on in the community and how people feel about it,” he said.
He called journalism “a community project that records our works and lives from large to small for those who will come when we are gone.” And he noted that without journalism, “local government meetings pass into the ether without anyone taking note, [and] thousands of local ordinances are passed without any public knowledge.”
The South Berwick Reporter, which began covering local news in March, initially posted articles on Facebook but this month announced the launch of its web page at southberwickreporter.org.
The launch party marked the kickoff of the website as well as the e-paper’s effort to raise funds to help pay for the web domain, insurance and other costs associated with the project.
The South Berwick Reporter is the latest addition to the family of 10 local non-profit programs under the fiscal umbrella of SoBo Central.
In closing his talk, Kingsbury said, “I’m looking forward to reading through the South Berwick Reporter when I reach for the headlines in the morning, and I hope you will too.”
To watch a video of Kingsbury’s full remarks, click here
