Dawn’s Delights

I know I have quite a few readers of this column and have been reading it for 13 years, in whichever paper I was working at. Many of you have been faithful readers, some just every now and then. When I first started writing, I will never, I was at an estate sale than Ms. Pat Peacock was holding, and she called me over and said, “Dawn, you have found your niche. Don’t you ever stop.”

For those who don’t know, Ms. Pat was a mentor to me, my entire teenage years. She also treated me with kindness and gave me great advice. Sometimes I even followed it.

All across our country, state and communities, the local printed newspapers have been dying. Now I know that so many of you get your “news” from social media. But seriously, how much of that is real news? Do you ever fact check those items or do you just believe them because they are on the internet? I hate to say this, but most of that is not even truth. Real newspapers, have an ethical staff who strives to get it right. I strive to get things right. If I am wrong, I don’t mind being corrected. This happened in a recent story. I got confused, but when I was corrected I ran a correction in the paper. In small towns everywhere, the local newspaper is not there anymore. No one seems to realize what they have lost until it is gone. It is very frustrating as the editor of the Era-Enterprise (formerly the DeWitt Era-Enterprise) when I hear people saying too bad there isn’t a printed paper in Arkansas County anymore. I am like what planet do you live on? We have been covering Arkansas County for years. I don’t know what to do for people to understand we do have a LOCAL PRINTED NEWSPAPER here! We are ALL LOCAL, ALL THE TIME! You won’t find a ton of press releases in our paper, you will find local stories about not only Stuttgart and DeWitt, but also Almyra, Humphrey, Crocketts Bluff, St. Charles and all points in between. While I try to be everywjhere, I physically can not be. But I am always happy to publish local events and stories. You don’t have to be a great writer, just send me the info, I am an editor, that is totally in my wheelhouse to make sure it is correct. I would love for more people to send things in about what is happening in their community.

You can’t complain about something not being in the paper, when you never let anyone know. Our staff is two employees and three contractors, and I have a couple contributors who send in stories. Not one of us is actually a full-time employee. I get paid for 30 hours a week and my co-worker gets 20. Contractors aren’t required to work a certain amount. Anyone who knows me, knows that I work way more than 30 hours a week. 

What we really need are some businesses to step up and do some advertising or be sponsors of the paper. We have print and digital packages that are reasonable and cheaper than other media. Our Facebook page has 138,000 views a month and our website has about 65,000. We have people from all over the United States looking at us (which kinda creeps me out). And you have to admit our yearly subscription rate is the cheapest bargain in the county!

When the SDL stopped printing in 2019, I heard people griping all the time about no longer having a printed paper. But we do! If you don’t support it then it will go by the wayside, too.

You can advertise for as low as $25 a week, and more importantly, you will be supporting the local newspaper that has the LOCAL news, not state or national, but the local news you care about and want to see.

Until next time…