Community journalism
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Community journalism is locally oriented coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods or individual suburbs rather than metropolitan, state, national or world news.
If it covers those topics, community journalism concentrates on their effect on local readers. Community newspapers, often but not always published weekly, also tend to cover subjects larger news media do not, such as students on the honor roll at the local high school, school sports, crimes such as vandalism, zoning issues and the other details of community life. Some dismiss these as "chicken dinner" stories, but such "hyperlocal" coverage can play a vital role in building and maintaining neighborhoods.
Leo Lerner, founder of Chicago's erstwhile Lerner Newspapers, was wont to say, "A fistfight on Clark Street is more important to our readers than a war in Europe."
The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, which has 260 members in seven countries (U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand), encourages and promotes independent editorial comment, news content, and leadership in community newspapers throughout the world. Its purpose is to help those involved in the community press improve standards of editorial writing and news reporting and to encourage strong, independent editorial voices.
An increasing number of community newspapers are now owned by newspaper groups who realize that these papers can be quite profitable, although many rural papers are still "mom and pop" operations.
