To the Publisher:
Your recent editorial MORE NEWSPAPERS JUST DIED (August 26) deserves a banner headline and front page placement.
The death of local news has been as quiet as a drowning and equally as devastating.
Gannett has done a resounding disservice to its readers and, at the risk of sounding apocryphal, democracy itself.
As you noted, there used to be a number of reporters from competing papers covering select board, school, planning board and town meetings.
In Westborough alone the Telegram & Gazette, Westborough News, Community Advocate and Chronotype were all located within blocks of each other.
There was a healthy competition to write a good story based on facts and face to face coverage.
The echo chamber of social media that silos users based on algorithms is about as dangerous as it gets to the pursuit of “capital T truth.”
Democracy dies in darkness (Washington Post). It can also disappear in the fog of misinformation that so easily spreads in a news vacuum now being created by Gannett.
I wish you success as you fill this void with unbiased local coverage. There is so much riding on it.
Sincerely,
Judy Powell
Westborough
