By Pattie Mihalik

I have a question for you.

If you’re sitting there reading this newspaper, do you know how fortunate you are?

There is no doubt that small-town newspapers are a blessing. But they are disappearing from the scene at an alarming rate.

Many more newspaper have folded ever since COVID-19 made things even worse for newspapers that were already hurting.

Can you lose something and not even know it’s disappearing?

You can when it happens a little at a time, one instance at a time.

The loss of a newspaper only hits home when it’s your paper that is gone, your way of life that changes in the process.

You can get all the national news you want on television and on the Internet. You can learn everything about the so-called facts of every political issue.

What you can’t find are local agendas. You can’t know what’s happening behind the scenes that will have a bearing on your life, your home, your taxes.

Without a paper to ferret out local issues, there’s a lot you won’t know.

In many ways a hometown newspaper defines a community.

I have always loved small-town journalism and have thrived on telling readers what makes up the heartbeat of a community.

Every parade, every community concert in the park, every local happening, every local school board or council meeting - that’s the heartbeat of a community.

I have always felt privileged to be part of the stethoscope that allowed others to hear that heartbeat.

Some people happily thrive on life in the big city. Many journalists aspire to work at big papers where they believe they can write about big issues. Neither of those choices had ever appealed to me.

It is in the small towns where my soul finds meaning and satisfaction. For more than four decades I have written about my small town version of “big issues,” the kind of local stories that only get told in local newspapers.

While I feel good knowing I have brought to light a few cases where taxpayers’ money was being wasted by incompetence or downright fraud, these were not the stories I most wanted to tell.

I thrived telling stories about good people doing good deeds.

These are not the kind of stories one finds on the national news, are they?

But they are the kind of stories that help us have faith in our fellow man, the kind of stories that give us pride in our community and in the folks who live there.

Everyone has a different idea about what makes good local journalism. I just outlined an idea or two of mine.

I have always been fortunate to work for small papers that specialize in local news. I used to stress to my writers not to write “ha-ha you missed it” stories.

That’s when a paper publishes great photos and a story about an event that already took place. But they didn’t inform readers ahead of time so they could experience the event instead of just reading about it.

Much can be learned from your local newspaper that you can’t learn in other places.

Some small papers tackle big issues and do it so well that they effect positive change.

The New York Times recently published a heartfelt story about veteran reporter Evan Brandt at the Pottsville Mercury. When the paper could no longer afford to keep its building and most reporters had to be let go, Evan continued writing by setting up shop in his attic.

If you want to read his inspiring story that succinctly makes readers aware of the tenuous state of local newspapers, look it up on the Internet.

The Mercury is the smallest newspaper to win two Pulitzer Prizes. Its first Pulitzer was won by Tom Kelly, an extraordinarily kind, giving person.

I was so excited for Tom when I heard the Pulitzer news that I jumped up and down so hard in my living room, causing my prized figurines to fall off the piano and smash from the vibration.

Locally, we gained from the Pottsville Mercury when Bob Urban left Pottstown to lend his leadership at the Times News.

Urban followed in the footsteps of longtime editor Bob Parfitt. When I think of those men, the word that comes to mind is integrity. They had that in spades and made sure our stories had it, too.

I remember coming back to the Times News telling Parfitt about a court hearing I just covered. A mother with a 5-year-old girl, a Shirley Temple look-alike, told the judge she didn’t want her any more.

That lead to my feature story, “Throw away kids,” telling readers heart-wrenching stories about Carbon County parents who no longer wanted their children.

But before it could run, Parfitt made sure we had the facts right in the unbelievable story.

Fact checking is still big at small-town newspapers because we know the repercussions people can face if we get it wrong.

Don’t you wish big media did the same fact checking?

I was always proud to be a newspaper journalist and especially proud of the Times News and its weekly newspapers. Its owners and hard working editors do all in their power to keep us a viable community force.

May that force always be with us.

And may we realize how lucky we are to have a community newspaper.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.