Last Thursday’s Whitewater Register is evidence of the decline of that weekly, and how it has become an echo chamber for a small number of residents.
“Editor” Carrie Dampier devotes precious front page space, above the fold, to a single council member’s pet topics from the last Common Council meting. Two topics preoccupied that council member, and so, Dampier, also: (1) what to do about the old middle school’s lot, and (2) salting of our streets in winer.
Neither topic is critical to the success of our town, and the issue of the right mix of salt on the city’s streets was little more than a personal imposition on public time.
Dampier leads with one topic, and publishes both on the front page. If you suspect that neither topic is really significant, then you’re right. These stories, and the space that Dampier devotes to them, are just a valentine to one council member, and those who support his views.
The Register‘s not a newspaper for Whitewater; it’s a confidence-building memo for the stodgy town elite. Dampier tells them what they want to hear.
How do I know? Well, consider a recent advertisement, inside the Register, about a ‘baker’s dozen’ subscription offer. The Register lists, in its favor, these points: “It’s All Here. Local Government. Local School News. Local Photos. Local Ad Specials. Local Columns.”
That’s only believable if one defines “all” as “next to nothing compared to other papers and websites.” No one outside the Register‘s ever-shrinking subscriber base believes that the Register truly offers these things in abundance. The subscription offer is less an enticement than a reassurance to ostrich-like subscribers that the paper still has relevance.
It’s more than that, though. It’s reassurance to the town faction, itself, that they’re still in charge, and that they will keep mattering, and that their views will be presented exclusively, as they prefer.
The Parakeet’s Choice!
