In French, raison d’etre literally means “reason for being,” and in English it means about the same. Someone’s raison d’etre is the most important thing to them: Michael Jordan’s raison d’etre was basketball. Beethoven’s raison d’etre was music. A raison d’etre motivates a person; it’s their purpose.
The Bedford Citizen was founded 11 years ago. The idea was pretty simple. Bedford used to have a vibrant local newspaper that kept our residents informed about what was going on locally. But by 2011, The Bedford Minuteman was in slow decline and was really not keeping the town well informed. That was the genesis for the creation of The Bedford Citizen.
What we didn’t know, but in retrospect is obvious, is that what was happening in Bedford was a national trend with dire consequences.
Local news is more than just something nice to have. Local news really is the foundation of a community. Having a community that is aware of what’s going on leads to civic engagement and participation, empathy, and shared goals just to name a few. Communities without a reliable local news source are more divided, more susceptible to corruption, and lose that sense of community.
How a community keeps its local news is really up to the community. Here in Bedford The Citizen is lucky to have strong support from our town to keep the news coming.
We thought sharing why we do what we do, and keeping our community informed about the plight of local news can help explain our mission – to inform and engage the Bedford community – and help explain why your support is so important.*
When we come across a relevant article in the news, we will share it with you. Letting you know why we do what we do seems important to us, I hope you all agree.
Below is a story from PBS’s Judy Woodruff explaining the crisis. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-connections-between-decline-of-local-news-and-growing-political-division
* We’re in the midst of our NewsMatch campaign to raise $40,000 by December 31. Your gift up to $1,000 will be matched by NewsMatch, local donors, Suzanne and Company, and Werfen up to $30,000. Please consider a gift today.
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