I had a serendipitous moment a while back during one of my shifts at my job as a caller for my college's Phone-a-Thon. One of the girls in my class had told me several weeks before that her mother worked as a journalist. I was calling senior parents to talk about giving a donation to the Senior Gift when I came across a name in my stack I recognized. It was her mother, and we wound up having a very good conversation and she gave me permission to email her to set up a time we could have an interview.
Diane Chiddister is the editor and co-owner of the Yellow Springs News, a weekly paper that provides the small community of Yellow Springs, Ohio with its news. I drove out to Yellow Springs from Richmond one Thursday afternoon to meet up with her at the Emporium, a small coffee shop situated right on Yellow Springs' main drag.
The atmosphere of the small town of 4,000 on the day I visited reflected what Diane had to say about the success of the weekly paper in the community. Everyone was outside enjoying the warm afternoon, chatting with each other, being friendly-- it seemed like everyone there knew everyone else, in a neighborly sort of way.
"We're so odd and out of the mainstream here," said Diane about the newspaper. "What journalism really is about, especially small-town journalism, [is] curiosity about the world and about people." The decline in print media really has not affected newspapers in small communities like Yellow Springs, where residents depend on the paper to provide them with their local news. There are only nine independent weekly papers in Ohio now, she said, but still has faith in the future of these small papers.
"We can do what we want," she laughed. For example, my visit coincided with April Fool's Day, and Diane showed me the paper from that day with its false front page. Though the rest of the paper was normal, that page showed they could do something fun while still delivering the news to their community. Diane said that the people who work at the paper don't get paid much, but it's liveable-- and the paper pays for all health care, including premiums and up to the deductible, for the 15 staff members. This is another step out of the mainstream for the Yellow Springs News, said Diane, as most businesses don't pay all health care.
One pressure their paper has been feeling from the changes in the world of journalism led them to launch their new web site, http://ysnews.com/, on the day I had my interview with Diane.
"We've been feeling the frustration of being a weekly in a world that's used to round-the-clock news," she said. They plan on having daily postings, but are working to keep the paper separate from the website, she added. One part of it she is particularly excited about is the interactive forum on the site, which will be the "virtual version of people hanging out and talking to each other downtown," Diane said. The staff of the paper are used to a "weekly way of thinking," as she puts it. "[We are] doing [the website] because we feel like we have to do it-- we have to have a web presence." However, she feels like it will be adding something that will enhance the tight community already present in Yellow Springs.
That tight community fuels her hope for the continued publication of the Yellow Springs News. "In a place with a sense of community, you really do contribute to the community all the time," she said. "There's never a day where I don't feel valued... people tell us every day that they love our paper." While large and midsize newspapers may be having a hard time in the current times, smaller newspapers don't suffer much competition.
And as far as the future of print? Diane believes there is certainly a positive future ahead. "[There's] lots of opportunity in small communities for newspapers. It's a very meaningful job; you feel like you're doing something important and meaningful to the community."
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