Community newspapers fulfil an incredibly important role in the fabric of South Africa

Gus Silber, a renowned journalist, and author lives in Northcliff with his family and is passionate about the media and its function in society.

The Northcliff Melville Times had a lengthy and fascinating discussion with him about our paper and how he sees its impact on the communities we cover.

Below are some of his reflections on the importance of community journalism.

The paper has really improved over the past few months. It always has something for everyone to enjoy, be it hard news, community news and sport, and other interesting elements.

The fact that it is a free newspaper that is delivered straight to our homes is fantastic because people don’t need to make the effort to discover what is happening around them.

But the habit of reading a newspaper has changed dramatically over the years.

Twitter introduced the concept of condensing information into just a few words. Many readers nowadays need many different elements if they are to read a longer article like sub-headings, bullet points, graphics, and pictures. The fact that the paper has introduced so many new elements like this recently is just fantastic.

By covering topical and hyper-local content, attention is given to problems that national or even provincial papers cannot cover. When a situation arises like a massive burst water pipe, or an individual who has been without power for an inexcusable amount of time, community newspapers can hold officials and entities to account. It is a very important role.

I wasn’t always very conscious of it as a journalist, but we play a vital role in documenting what is changing in a community and being the voice of the people. You are also looking back and acting a little bit as a curator of history.

The power that local papers have to make people feel acknowledged and recognised and special is huge. It’s lovely on a Tuesday to be able to read about neighbours and see what they are up to.

Many people get hyper-local information from their community WhatsApp groups or social media but the information there has not been vetted or checked or vetted which can be problematic.

Also, by being a free paper, it is also a way for people who are maybe not in local WhatsApp groups, like domestic workers and others to learn about their environment and happenings within it.

The youth in particular have not grown up in an era of parents reading newspapers, but this is where community journalism excels.

The youth page that was recently introduced where they can write their own content in a mainstream publishing platform is one of the ways you are building news consumers of the future.

If a teenager for example knows they will be featured in an article about their school or local event they are likely to pick the paper up to see if they have been written about. This in turn hopefully leads them to read other content covered and therefore fosters enjoyment of printed journalism.

My daughter Rachel for example kept the edition where you published her youth page article, photographed it, and shared it on her social media platforms. These are the kinds of articles that people will clip out of the paper and treasure.

Thank goodness we still have a healthy publishing industry in South Africa and a strong community newspaper culture that I hope will continue to thrive, like the Northcliff Melville Times.