Steve Burns
WMAL.com
DAMASCUS, MD — (WMAL) When the local Gazette newspapers throughout Montgomery and Prince George’s County close this week and 70 people lose their jobs, CNN Senior Media Correspondent Brian Stelter thinks we’ll be losing more than just ink on paper. He started out at his local Damascus Gazette before he went on to the New York Times and CNN.
“I was able to become a writer for it when I was in high school, then as an intern in college. I think for a long time, we took for granted the idea of hometown, small town newspapers. In my case, the Damascus Gazette reached 5,000 people. Not a lot of people, but they were the right 5,000 people,” Stelter said in an interview with WMAL.
The big papers and TV stations will come to a small town like Damascus for a violent or bizarre story, but Stelter says there’s now a void for everything else.
“The one reporter who was in charge of covering the town, knew that town like nobody else. When bad news happens, you see reporters show up in a small town like Damascus. But what about all the good news? What about all the day-to-day news?”
The Gazette newspapers are owned by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos. They came with his purchase of the Washington Post in 2013.
“I guess it’s ultimately Jeff Bezos’ fault. I know it’s kind of silly to say that, but he was the ultimate owner of these newspapers. I’m not sure he even knew what he was buying though. I’m not even sure how much he knew that he was picking up these small, weekly papers all across our region,” Stelter said. “Apparently, they tried to find a buyer. I’m not entirely convinced they tried that hard to find buyers for these newspapers.”
Stelter acknowledges the Internet has changed journalism and newspapers, but says some things just can’t be replicated.
“You think about what it’s like to be a student, seeing your name in the paper. Whether you’re on the honor roll, or you’ve won an award at the county fair. Experiences like that, I just don’t know how the web will re-create those experiences.”
And even today, he says it’s not just a newspaper, it’s an engrained part of his hometown and experience growing up.
“It’s always special to come back to Damascus and give a commencement speech, and know the Gazette would be there to cover it. It was always so great to have the paper call me ‘Damascus Grad.’ It was a very proud thing. It’s sort of hard to imagine what’s going to replace that kind of local news coverage.”
Copyright 2015 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Gazette.net)
