READING ABOUT REAL AMERICA
on the healthy state of US local papers
LOCAL newspapers delight me. The more local they are, the more I love them. Unlike the nationals, which are based on strong but arbitrary subeditorial conven- tions, local papers have the simple news- value of ordinary men and women. They are about people, not personalities. When I go down to the country on Friday I fall eagerly on the Bridgwater Mercury and the Somerset County Gazette. My current favourite is the West Somerset Free Press, with its fascinating survey of all the Women's Institutes and its unselfconscious hunting notes (`The spring staghunting this season was well up to average with 10 stags being accounted for, none of which would have grown into anything useful for the herd'). Even their imperfections are en- dearing. Last week the Free Press pub- lished its entire Page 17 upside down and ran a display advertisement for an auction which had taken place the previous Thurs- day. For me, such peccadilloes add relish.
One of my chief pleasures in visiting the United States is the sheer abundance of local papers. There are many thousands of them; I would not be surprised if there were more local newspapers in America than in the rest of the world put together. Most are fiercely independent and opinion- ated. Vast numbers of them are published daily, but even the weeklies often report and comment upon national and world events as if no other paper existed. I recently spent a week teaching at a Uni- versity of California campus, and found that in the inland valleys there are plenty of people who have never in their lives read the San Francisco Chronicle or the Los Angeles Times, let alone the New York Times or the Washington Post. For such readers the local paper is the paper, the only one they normally see. If possible, I pick up my copy at the place where it is published. In these premises, remarkably unchanged over the past half-century, you can usually see from the front office into the press shop, where grizzled comps are setting up the next issue, or into the newsroom, where the all-purpose sub, often actually wearing a green eye-shade, is thumbing over slips from what is still called the wire-service. In one of those front offices last month I was served by the editor's daughter — the authentic 19th- century touch — and in another the sale was rung up on a massive brass cash register which had been in service since the time of President McKinley.
US local papers, particularly in Califor- nia, are of every conceivable political complexion. The Davis Enterprise, the daily serving the campus town where I stayed, is ultra-progressive, propounding all the sacred causes of donnish dottiness. It gave extensive coverage to a local professor who favours what he called tioregional activism', and who wants coyotes, wolves and grizzly bears reintro- duced into the region: his message was 'Bring back the predators'. But all these papers, whatever their politics, have a primary commitment to community ser- vice. They print all kinds of detailed information. The Enterprise publishes photos of animals waiting adoption at the County Animal Shelter. The St Helena Star, a weekly, tells you about all the local school lunch menus:
Monday: hot dog, junior salad bar, veggie dippers and fruit salad. Tuesday: meatball sandwich, salad, buttery corn and raisins. Wednesday: chilli and chips, salad, peanut butter and celery, and iced juice. Thursday: picnic basket, salad, buttery veggies and cherry crisp. Friday: enchilada, salad, fruit salad and peanuts. Bagel dog or spaghetti can be substituted for all entrées.
US locals are particularly good, it seems to me, at covering police activities. If the St Helena Star gets a letter from a reader complaining of a police action, it goes to the local police authority, insists on a blow-by-blow report of what happened, and then prints the reader's account and the police version side by side, without comment, leaving you to judge for your- self.
I found a remonstrance from a visiting San Francisco homosexual (with Aids) describing how he and his friend were arrested by the St Helena police, and the latter's defence, illuminating about both parties. The Calistogan, another weekly I studied, prints the day-by-day, hour-by- hour police incident report, which makes curiously reassuring reading. Thus:
May 1: 1.03 a.m. A loud party was reported on Lincoln Avenue. On request, the responsi- bles agreed to quiet down. 2.24 a.m. Alan Johnson of Calistoga was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was booked into Napa County Jail. 1.32 p.m. A non-injury traffic collision occurred on First Street. 1.46 p.m. A medical aid was reported on Washington Street. The victim was treated at the scene. 6.56 p.m. Two persons were loitering near the elementary school. The subjects left upon the officer's request. 10.00 p.m. An officer assisted in locating a water leak at a business on First Street. The owner was contacted to abate the problem. 1.32 a.m. (May 2): A loud party was reported on Myrtle Street. The responsible were asked to quiet down. They complied.
Many thousands of words are devoted to detailed `Community Calendars', which reflect the extraordinary range of activities in which Californians engage. One issue of the Napa Register (another weekly) listed 62 events for the week, including the Men's Barbershop Harmony Chorus, Napa Val- ley Chapter, its female version, the Sweet Adelines Inc., and meetings of the Adoles- cent Grief Group, the Group for Separated and Divorced Men and Women, the Dead Serious Weight Control Group, the Abused Women's Support Group, Young People's Alcoholics Anonymous and Over- eaters Anonymous. Most of the meetings take place in churches and these listings testify to the huge, active power of religion in American life but still more the Amer- ican obsession with bodily health. Nearly all papers have medical columns, featuring reader's letters and answers. Thus, from the Davis Enterprise: 'Dear Dr Donohue: I have been told I have Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. I also have hyperparathyroid- ism. I also have peptic ulcers. Please comment.' The same paper ran an exten- sive profile of a woman official described as 'The County's New Aids Coordinator', under the title: 'She Looks for the Human Being Behind All the Needle Marks'. Americans talk and write about medical details with an openness which would make English local papers squirm. Every paper I examined had repeated references to local events, chiefly 'Open Forums', on the problems of menopause. Another com- mon theme was the growth of `support groups for relationship addiction', accom- panied by fierce arguments about whether such meetings should be single-sex or mixed.
Local papers take you close to the real America in all its touching and neurotic diversity. Despite all the critical fuss about Nancy Reagan's astrologer, I notice that Virtually all US papers give space to star-guides. Indeed, every American I questioned on this last trip became shifty on the subject. Reading local newspapers suggests that in this, as in countless other respects, the Reagans are a typical Amer- ican family.
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