Reading newspapers an act of courage

But for all the things that are lost when a newspaper closes, and for all the ways that a community dies when a paper dies, maybe the biggest loss of all is the invitation of the newspaper to leave our hobbit holes and venture out into our community, meeting those neighbors with their varied values.”

All week long — National Newspaper Week — we have been examining the important role newspapers play in their communities and the many ways those communities become malnourished when their papers close.

Perhaps the most important role a community newspaper plays is asking you to get to know your neighbors.

It arrives at your home, maybe on your porch, maybe in the mail, increasingly on your computer, but then immediately invites you out of that space, challenging you to learn about the people who live just down the street, who play in the same parks, who send their children to the same schools, who shop in the same stores.

And because of that — because a community newspaper bids you to venture forth — reading one is an act of courage.

Because not everyone who lives down the street sees the world the way you do.

Not everyone who plays in the same parks shares the same values.

Not everyone who sends their children to the same schools wants the same things for their children.

And because not everyone shopping at the same stores votes the same way.

Committing to reading a community newspaper, then, is committing to learn from others, to understand them, and committing to having our values, views and our priorities challenged.

That is no small thing, especially when the safe thing to do is to hunker down in our silos, to double down in our echo chambers, to choose the comfortable life over the challenged life.

Having our values, our views and our priorities challenged is not to abandon them, though, but rather it is to ask questions about them, to think more deeply about them, and in the end to maybe even strengthen them.

But we won’t be stronger when our community is lessened — as happens every time a paper dies.

All week long, we’ve noted the ways and cited the studies that reveal communities are diminished when a newspaper closes ... communities are less informed, weaker politically, less engaged, weaker financially and even less healthy.

But for all the things that are lost when a newspaper closes, and for all the ways that a community dies when a paper dies, maybe the biggest loss of all is the invitation of the newspaper to leave our hobbit holes and venture out into our community, meeting those neighbors with their varied values.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.”

As National Newspaper Week wraps up, permit us a slight tweak of a comment by the playwright Arthur Miller, who said that a good newspaper is a community talking to itself. A good newspaper is a community getting to know itself. And that makes for a healthy, vibrant, thriving community.

That’s why, as this week closes, we salute and thank you, our readers, for your acts of courage. It’s a dangerous business, reading a newspaper.

This editorial was published in the Oct. 11, 2025 issue of the Joplin Globe in recognition of National Newspaper Week. It is reprinted here with permission.