Newspapers serve as the heartbeat of a community

Words like flexibility, adaptability and innovation put into action are critical at newspapers like ours and across the country.

We're losing a newspaper a week across the U.S., according to the State of Local News Project from Northwestern University, a path that will mean the country will have lost a third of its newspapers since 2005 by the end of this year. People who live in 204 counties live in a news desert, which means they don't have a paper, local digital site, public radio newsroom or ethnic publication that serves their local community. So, many turn to national news sources.

But it's in the city council and school board meetings, the small business openings, the interactions between neighbors, where life really flourishes. Social media and national news, 24/7 cable networks, swing toward the negative. In the nooks and crannies of everyday life, we find the full picture of a community. One where people help each other. Where they work hard to bring money home for their family. Where they try to build and grow and love and struggle and sometimes fall down and sometimes go down the wrong path, but we live full, complete lives. That's what local newspapers show. They show a community as it is, tell the stories no one else is telling.

Newspapers are so important to the people they serve. They are they heartbeat of a community. Thank you for being our pulse.

Kayla Green is executive editor of The Sumter Item.