STATE OF THE TOWN LINE: The importance of the printed paper

The Town Line office in South China, ME..

by Neil Farrington
former China selectman
member of The Town Line board of directors

I have been associated with The Town Line since it became a nonprofit, membership-owned newspaper in 1999. Here are a few reasons I feel the printed paper is very important in our community.

First and foremost, it gives us a consistent recording of our area’s small but important community accomplishments. Not just as towns but as townspeople. Youth recognition, organizations helping others and individuals showing their talents that would otherwise be too small to print in normal news media outlets.

Second, it’s printed. With today’s media information going digital-only, our news is deleted from our minds very quickly. Local news print allows information to travel outside of your internet service. In the case of The Town Line, over half of their operating cost is used to print and distribute each issue.

As a member of the board of directors of The Town Line, I have seen the flow of advertising revenue drastically reduced over the past five years. Small businesses in our area claim that it is more effective to use their own website, Facebook, radio and TV. Businesses that do advertise with us recognize what the paper has meant to our communities over the past 30 years.

I would personally like the paper to continue for another 30 years, so I’m asking our readership to take some ownership in The Town Line. A $35 yearly membership donation could save our little printed paper from being swallowed up by the digital 21st century world.

Once this gets printed in The Town Line it cannot be deleted (only burned).

(Please donate with credit card or Paypal here.)