A new beginning

Sunday will mark the beginning of a new year and, in many ways, a new start for this newspaper. The Carroll County News has been owned by out-of-state corporations for decades, but Sunday will be the official beginning of its return to local ownership.

It’s an exciting time and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. But I’m a little nervous about it, too. On paper, my partners and I have a plan that we believe will be financially viable and allow this community to continue to have its own newspaper, while so many other communities around the state and around the country as a whole have lost that part of their identity.

I served as managing editor for the daily Pine Bluff Commercial for more than four years. When I saw that paper begin to head toward extinction, I began looking for a new job. I interviewed for the managing editor position at a newspaper not far from Carroll County.

One of the questions posed to me during that interview was: “Why does your paper in Pine Bluff look so different from ours here?”

My answer was: “A newspaper is a reflection of the community it serves. There are many good people in Pine Bluff, and there are positive things happening there, and those things are covered as they should be. But there are also 20 homicides a year in a town of less than 50,000 people. There is extreme poverty. Jobs are hard to come by. Those are real issues in the community and the newspaper reflects that.”

I didn’t get that job, for which I’m eternally grateful, because I eventually landed here in Berryville and Carroll County. I’ve been here about eight and a half years now, and this is my home. I can’t imagine living or working anywhere else in the world.

And this newspaper is also a reflection of the community it serves. Thankfully, we live in a relatively prosperous area (although poverty does exist here and should never be ignored). We don’t have the kind of violent crime that affects other communities. We are a tight-knit community that feels like exactly what it is: a small town where people know their neighbors, where everyone roots for their home team and where folks can raise their families in peace.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of news to cover. I’m amazed sometimes at how many stories there are to tell. We do our best to tell them well and to be a reflection of the community.

Now, as we set out on a new path forward, we need your help. Of course, we need our local businesses to advertise with us, so that we can print more pages and tell more stories about the community. But we need support from our readers as well. We need to know what’s going on. Tell us your stories. Send us your birth announcements. Let us know about your anniversaries and your church programs and your fundraisers. This paper doesn’t belong to me or my partners. It belongs to the community.

You won’t hear me say a bad word about Rust Communications or CherryRoad Media. Those folks kept me employed for more than eight years. They helped me put food on my table. But I want everyone who reads to understand that as of Sunday, this newspaper no longer belongs to corporate ownership. As I said, it belongs to this community — and it’s operated by people who live in and love Carroll County.

My partners and I took a chance, because we believe this community should always have its own newspaper. If you’re reading this, thank you, and please support us if you can.

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Scott Loftis is managing editor for Carroll County Newspapers. His email address is SLoftis@cherryroad. com.