It has been 50 years this month since I began my newspaper career here in Palm Beach County, a wet-behind-the-ears Jimmy Olsen hired as a reporter for the weekly Delray Beach and Boynton Beach News Journal.
Back then, Delray Beach was known among us locals as Dullray. Downtown Atlantic Avenue thrived during the day, but was empty at night — with dark stores and sidewalks you could roll a bowling ball down.
It wasn’t that long ago that you could walk downtown and almost inevitably run into someone you knew for decades. Over the years that’s changed, and one element of that was the demise of the News Journal.
Let me explain:
Community newspapers help build communities, and when we lose those newspapers our sense of community gradually erodes.
For years before it ceased publication in 1986, the News Journal was the definition of a community newspaper. You could thumb through the pages and find out who the new Eagle Scout from Troop 301 was. You could find out who won the weekly ladies golf tournament at the city golf course.
Reporters went to Kiwanis meetings and reluctantly sang old-timey songs with Delray Beach business leaders. We sat through chamber breakfasts and even an occasional Rotary or Lions Club meeting.
I covered Atlantic High School sports and the Delray Rocks like a blanket and penned pieces about Little League, too.
The News Journal was a great place to work. We made lifelong friends while doing everything from covering commission meetings to delivering papers before daylight on Thursday mornings.
The News Journal was a conduit connecting us all — and in doing so, strengthening our sense of community.
It wasn’t the only community newspaper in those days. Boca Raton had the Boca News, a daily that focused on very local news, and there was also the Monday-Thursday Papers, a weekly serving mostly Boca Raton. Farther north, there was the Lake Worth Herald.
Sadly, most newspapers today no longer build communities. More and more people get their news from their phone or computer, reading only what an algorithm sends them.
Daily newspapers are so thinly staffed that there’s no one left to do the type of local news that we used to call “refrigerator journalism” — a reference to a story that you would cut out and tape to your refrigerator.
Yes, you can still get some of that news, but you won’t stumble upon it just thumbing through pages. You have to go searching online.
The result, in many instances, is that our sense of community is like a shadow that fades in the sunset. We are no longer as tight and, too often, no longer caring about each other like we used to.
There is, however, reason to be hopeful.
A new generation of community newspapers like The Coastal Star is surviving and even thriving, in some areas, in large part because they are helping to create communities. They are “our little newspaper” that we look to when we want to know what’s happening in our corner of the world.
Rebuilding that sense of community here on the barrier islands could start simply by reading the “Meet Your Neighbor” and “Coastal Star” features that highlight people living along the coast.
Also, sending in story ideas would help The Coastal Star better tap into the communities it serves. And the paper always welcomes local events to feature on its “Celebrations” pages.
You might even consider supporting its advertisers, who are part of that larger fabric, too.When you support The Coastal Star and others with a similar mission, you do more than just read a newspaper. You help strengthen our communities.
— Rich Pollack,
reporter
Comments