Social media allows people to get “information,” if you want to call it that, being circulated within a community.

That social media has become a source of local news is not a good thing, because nearly all of that content is anything but credible news.

It is unverified, exaggerated, often libelous, riddled with hidden biases and agendas, rumor, presented out of context, stolen intellectual property, publicity for commerical interests and/or polluted to the point where nothing taken directly from social media can be taken as fact.

With the transformation of the primary communication medium to digital, there remains one source which offers the most coverage of credible news, and that is your local newspaper. This is yet another reason why a community depends on the daily product of the local newspaper.

Like any product, quality control is a key requirement for information to be converted into news. It is a unique product created by professionals with highly specialized training and skills.

Journalists have special training and hold to demanding ethical standards in news production, which is based on collecting information – often in a raw state when it is published on social media – distilling it and purifying it into factual information.

There is a real cost incurred in producing quality news, which is why newspapers charge for subscriptions. Given the value returned on that cost, however, the price is relatively miniscule.

There is no charge to join a social media network. In news consumption, just like with any commercial project, you get what you pay for. If you pay nothing for the social media version of your “news,” that’s what you get.

The digital medium has provided opportunities for other media like television and radio to provide local news and documenting history like newspapers have done for centuries. Their product is of higher quality than the nearly worthless information of the internet, but they are not competitive in the deep, comprehensive coverage of the community that local newspapers perform on a daily basis.

Subscribing to your local newspaper is by far the best way to find out what’s really going in your neighborhood, down the street and around the corner.

A Daily Mining Gazette editorial