News-Press Editorial:

Benton Communications, Inc., the parent company of the Falls Church News-Press, is proud to announce the formal incorporation of a foundation dedicated to community newspaper development. It has as its goal the creation and dissemination of educational and other opportunities aimed at instructing interested individuals and groups in the "how to's" of launching and sustaining effective local newspapers.

The importance of a free and independent press to a thriving democracy is more than just a matter of lip service. It is something that we at the News-Press have lived and breathed for 13 and a half years. We know that a local newspaper, with genuine ties to the community it serves, can make a substantial difference. It provides the glue and the medium through which important discourse occurs that enables a community to not only appreciate what it values most, but to meet and negotiate changes required to meet new challenges.

Newspapers change the way government is conducted by making it more participatory. Where good local papers do not exist, local government is less accountable and less inclined to explore and enact the best options for the community and its future. Newspapers help make reason and progress prevail over cronyism and inertia.

The need for genuine community newspapers extends to emerging democracies overseas, as well. As we experienced in the instructive microcosm of Falls Church over the years, even the best-intentioned governments have to learn how to get used to the existence of an independent press. But the net outcome is always the best, all around.

Good newspapers are not only a medium for information and an exchange of ideas, but they can also be visionary in their own right and serve as the conscience of a community. Unlike politicians, who generally react to public opinion and its perceived needs, newspapers can play a major role in shaping opinion and defining needs. They are not burdened by the need to get or stay elected in authoring editorials and commentaries, and the only thing that limits them is the merit and credibility of their ideas, themselves.

There is a crisis in the newspaper business that goes back to the advent of television, among other things. Even in the largest American cities, there is now usually only one newspaper, and in the suburbs and rural areas, large chains only pretend to provide local coverage, often doing barely more than changing the mastheads of each of a dozen or more so-called "local editions."

While the Internet is exploding as an alternative to all this, it and related technologies also enhance the promise of a revival of viable small, locally-based newspapers that can uniquely shape a community's sense of self, rally it to practice good government and inspire it to shape its optimum future. This is what the new Nicholas F. Benton Foundation for Community Newspaper Development will help foment.