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 started 11 years ago. The idea was pretty simple: Bedford once had a vibrant local newspaper that kept our residents informed about what was going on in town. 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 part of a national trend with local newspapers with dire consequences.
In this series, we share what we read, why we do what we do, and what your support, supports.
The Bedford Citizen is prominently featured in Dan Kennedy’s new book, “What Works in Local News.” In fact, there is a whole chapter on us.
On Feb. 23, Dan Kennedy was interviewed on WBZ-TV by Jon Keller. It’s an interesting discussion on the state of local media.
INTRO:
BOSTON – The United States has lost about one-fourth of its newspapers since 2005. So what can be done about the crisis in community news?
Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism at Northeastern University, is the co-author of the book “What Works in Community News.” The book is described as “A groundbreaking study of the journalism startups that are solving the local news crisis one community at a time.”
Kennedy said that in a time where there is skepticism in the media, local news outlets are more important than ever.
“At the local level, people are far more likely to trust their local news organization than they are to trust especially national cable news, for instance, which thrives on polarization and anger,” Kennedy said. “At the community level, what we’re hoping is that if you can get people to reengage with news about their communities, not only can that build trust in the news organization, but it can build trust among different parts of the population.”
You can see the complete interview at https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/keller-large-the-crisis-facing-community-news/
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