-Isms: Views on life in rural America

Michael Connelly wrote, “A newspaper is the center of a community, it’s one of the tent poles of the community, and that’s not going to be replaced by websites and blogs.”

The best-selling author and I are on the same page.

A printed paper will be archived and preserved for future use. A website, well, that’s not always a permanent form of history. Neither is social media, which I have written about previously.

I’ve had multiple conversations lately, with friends and colleagues, about preserving community history, whether it is an actual artifact or a news clipping. Newspapers are the first la...