It is my belief that one of the most important rolls of a news organization is community engagement. Why? It is how a publisher, editor or reporter develops the important contacts necessary for keeping up with current events in a community. The vital issues of the day that must be covered are best done so with establishing and maintaining relationships with newsmakers, whether they be community leaders or lesser known people working in the trenches and impacting their communities as much as any elected official or business leader.

It is my experience that over the past several years, the art of conversation is being lost. Many people just don’t talk to one another any more. There are any number of reasons for this – social media and our lack of civility about political differences immediately come to mind. I know that one solution to this loss of human engagement is to get people together. So, our reporting is designed to alert people of opportunities to gather together, especially through music, art, theater and community activism.

Several years ago, in a conversation with the publisher of a newspaper in southern West Virginia, the importance of a news organization as an education entity became crystal clear. We were discussing how his grandfather developed his philosophy of journalism that a news organization is as important as the public schools in educating the community we serve. As a retired teacher and son, grandson, brother and uncle to other educators, I know that to be true. I take that seriously.