Our story matters

A few weeks ago I wrote that words matter, referring to verbal words, and this week, as we observe National Newspaper Week I am going to discuss other words that matter — printed words in newspapers.

This year’s theme is Tell Our Stories, meaning for us newspaper folk to tell why we got into this business and for me the theme says it all. That’s why I do this — to tell our stories.

I started in Thermopolis at the Independent Record while a senior in a career class. Students were placed with businesses in areas where they had a potential career interest.

Initially, I thought I wanted to go into law but no attorney was willing to participate in the program. My next area of interest was writing and Pat Schmidt at the Independent Record was willing to take on a senior. I learned a lot about the newspaper business that year and in the summers I worked there, from writing stories, to layout, to developing pages, and selling ads.

I fell in love with community journalism the first year and went to the University of Wyoming to major in journalism, graduating with a degree after four years. Sure investigative reporter sounds more glamorous than community journalism, but it is not more important than what community journalists do, day in and day out.

I worked at the Independent Record two summers during college, including one as an intern, I worked at the Medicine Bow Post for one college course, and wrote for the UW Branding Iron (the college newspaper).

Upon graduation I worked for 16 years at the Lovell Chronicle, then 2.5 years at the Laramie Boomerang, back to the Big Horn Basin working eight years at the Basin Republican Rustler and then coming to the then Northern Wyoming Daily News now Northern Wyoming News in 2015.

I have learned a lot along my journey from each newspaper, each editor, each fellow reporter, and I am still learning some 34 years later.

One thing that has never wavered along the journey is my passion for the First Amendment, and in telling our stories, the stories of our community.

I remember when we were moving back to the Big Horn Basin and my husband asked if we could look for a home in Greybull and I said no. I did not feel that it was OK to live in another community from the one I would be covering.

It is one of the reasons I do not hire remote reporters. It is important for us to know the community we are writing about, to live in the community that is impacted by our stories.

If I was ever in doubt about whether or not what we write matters, that was dispelled by a story I wrote when I worked at the Lovell Chronicle. The elementary principal spoke about safety concerns of playground equipment during a school board meeting. I led with that discussion and it was in the headline.

The principal thanked me for putting it in writing, noting that the administration could no longer ignore it and the safety concerns were addressed.

She had mentioned the concerns previously but never publicly and never to the board.

What we write matters.

I believe what we do is important to our community and in Worland we are the main news source for many stories.

I cannot tell you the number of times I get frustrated when I see people asking on social media questions that if they had just read the newspaper they would have the answers.

We cover a variety of topics each week from meetings, to election, to sports, to human interest features, event features and so much more.

Most of that information you can only get here in printed pages of the Northern Wyoming News. What we print is not rumors that you may see on social media.

We use reputable, knowledgeable sources to bring you the information because we know that what we write, our words, matter. They matter to us, they matter to our community and they matter to you, our readers.

So as we as a newspaper celebrate National Newspaper Week, we also want to thank you, our readers, for also realizing the importance of the written word, for realizing what we do is important to our community. Thank you for your support.

We also need to thank all of our advertisers for without whom printing these words would not be possible. We appreciate your support of this local business and your support of the First Amendment.