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Award Winner Reminds Us Why We Need Community Journalism

Brian PJ Cronin. Credit: Beth Cronin

Brian PJ Cronin is this year’s recipient of the Rollin M. “Pete” McCommons Award for Distinguished Community Journalism (the “Petebody”), established at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication by Grady Thrasher and Kathy Prescott. The Grady College awards committee selected Cronin for his four-part series on food insecurity in the affluent New York state area covered by his paper, The Highlands Current, and entitled “Hunger in the Highlands.” 

“We were impressed by the depth and richness of this reporting, and especially the time and resources he was given to carry out this project,” explained Kyser Lough, the chair of the McCommons award committee and an assistant professor in Grady’s Department of Journalism. “He used well-rounded sourcing to find the relevant data and people necessary to build a deeper narrative,” Lough added, “which allowed him to thoroughly present the topic and then start exploring what people were doing about it. His work highlights the need for in-depth coverage like this that can fully explore the nuance and context of a community topic, and the importance of community news outlets.”

Here’s what Cronin had to say for himself when he received his award at the Grady Salutes gala on Friday, Apr. 28.

Thank you so much for this incredible honor, and for inviting me to come here. The most nerve-wracking and exciting interview I ever did as a journalist was when I got to spend an afternoon hanging out with Kate Pierson from The B-52s, so it means a lot to me to be able to be here in beautiful Athens.

And thank you for creating an award for community journalism. As I was told by my editor at the time when I started writing for The Highlands Current, there is nothing quite like covering the community in which you live. One week you’re walking down Main Street, and everyone is shaking your hand and thanking you for exposing government corruption, and the next week you’re doing all your grocery shopping two towns away so that no one throws a punch at you in the check-out line. I had assumed that was a joke, but after we put a story on the front page about an incident that happened at our local grocery store… well, let’s just say that if you ever find yourself at Key Foods in Beacon, NY, it would be best if you didn’t mention my name.

It’s a dicey gig, but someone has to do it. We know this by taking a look at the places known as “news deserts,” the ever-increasing locations that don’t have a local, independent news source such as The Highlands Current or Flagpole to keep an eye on things. The data tells us what befalls such places: lower voter turnout, lower civic engagement, elections in which incumbents run unopposed, higher taxes and higher political polarization.

There’s also the things that data can’t quite measure: What it means when a community no longer sees itself reflected in the media, when its shared tragedies and victories are no longer highlighted in a public forum, when its citizens forget that they can have a measurable impact on the world around them, when the muscle of democracy atrophies.

It’s up to small, local, independent news organizations with boots on the ground and knowledge of their communities to keep their communities from crumbling. Big Tech is not going to do it for us. There may be publishers espousing the supposed benefits that A.I. will bring shrinking newsrooms and time-crunched reporters, but I can assure you, there is no chatbot that is willing to sit through a four-hour zoning board meeting.

It’s up to us because no one else is going to do it for us. And it is especially significant for an institution as renowned and respected as the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication to honor the work that the country’s small newspapers are doing week in and week out, under difficult circumstances, because we love the places we live and want to see our homes thrive.

Thank you to my colleagues at The Highlands Current for always picking up the slack when I fall down a reporting rabbit hole for weeks at a time, for the communities of Beacon and Philipstown for supporting us, and for our editors and board of directors who always have our backs whenever we write a story that is critical of the actions of someone powerful in our community, who then responds by informing us that they will no longer be donating to our paper.

Whenever that happens, which it does somewhat regularly, I always get a sinking feeling in my stomach and an urge to update my resume, but my editor always laughs and says, “Forget ‘em.” He actually uses a different F-word than “forget” but I shan’t wish to sully this august institution with such salty language, so we’ll save it for the newsroom. Thank you again.

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