Importance of Newspaper’s Approach

“We decided we were going to move somewhere in Washington and so we got several daily newspapers for six months before we made the final decision,” was how Kathy McGee explained to me how they decided to move to Ferndale, WA (population 9,300) from Kansas City. She was a secretary and her husband was a utility company manager. She had recovered from a cancer scare and they decided to make a new start in a new area. They had visited WA on their honeymoon, liked the state and decided early on to move there.

“It was a leap of faith to make that move, but we’ve not had any regrets,” she told me as we flew from St. Louis to Dallas. “We lived in suburbia in a big 4 bedroom house. We sold it, held an auction and made the move. We found a bigger house on five acres out in the country.”

“The first night was kind of scary as we just couldn’t get used to the coyotes howling in the night.”

She does wood carvings, which she showed me on the plane ride. Each one takes about a week to do and has its own story. You will be able to see them on her new website, which is under construction (www.impressionsbykat.com). It was a nice, chance encounter on a usually boring plane ride.

Her story impressed upon me the importance of the local newspaper in helping people and companies in deciding if they will move there. I’ve seen a strong correlation with a newspaper that is constantly negative, focusing upon all the bad things happening in a town and low or negative growth for the community. Compare that to one that, while reporting on everything, seems to find good things happening in the community. That town seems to have a different approach and better growth prospects. Which one would you prefer to live in?