Here’s an assessment of the March 12th issue of the Whitewater Register, my Register Watch™ feature. For those new to the website (welcome, by the way), the feature started because Whitewater’s weekly newspaper has played a longtime role publishing poorly written, dull stories that coddle local politicians and supposedly important Whitewater residents.
In fact, the Register’s part of an out-of-town chain, offers few local stories, runs ads mostly for out-of-town businesses, and is in a multi-year circulation decline.
If the Register were not part of a chain, I doubt it would still be publishing; even as part of the Southern Lakes chain, the print edition of the paper may not last much longer. MyWalworthCounty.com’s the long-in-coming website of the newspaper chain, and that website may be a futile effort to boost circulation for newsprint links in the chain, or perhaps to offer Southern Lakes a publishing platform when many of the local papers fold.
I don’t know if the Register will fold, but it seems increasingly likely. Two years ago, or even a year ago, I talked with many people in town who told me that Hell would freeze before the Register would fold. I’m not so sure anymore.
(One sign of the Register’s increasing irrelevance is the interest that Whitewater politicians have directed elsewhere. One follows this interest: where they turn their attention, I’ll turn mine.)
The Register’s March 12th issue has an above-the-fold story on civil rights activist Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of several black students escorted under federal force into Central High in Little Rock. Brown-Trickey recently spoke on our campus, and her story is both inspiring and, coming as an address on campus, a local one, too. More of these stories, and the sensibility underlying them, might have made a difference, these last few years.
This could have been a feisty, plucky weekly newspaper, and through that course, might have survived, independent and proud. Inquisitive stories on political issues, and watching City Hall the Municipal Building closely might have assured an everlasting future. Some feelings might have been bruised, but every reporter who wrote those inquisitive stories on budgets, politicians, and policies would have slept for being true to a free press’s scrutiny of municipal affairs.
Look, though, at how much white space the Register’s front page has — even with a bold type headline for the story, there are large amounts of white around the headline (and too much around the paper’s bold banner). To see how anemic the paper’s Whitewater coverage has become, one need only look to page 10, where an East Troy story greets Whitewater residents: “Chamber, WCEDA and Village team up for small business loan workshop.” It’s the Whitewater Register, but a story about the East Troy Area Chamber of Commerce.
I wish the best to each and every resident of East Troy; that the Whitewater paper carries the story tells all one need know about our local press.