Editorial: Hosea Paddock and the legacy of local newspapers

As if we needed to be reminded, last week provided a poignant reflection on the value of local newspapers and the role they play in a community.

Friday marked the 164th anniversary of the birth of our founder, Hosea C. Paddock.

It was a day that came and went like all days do; Hosea, who died at age 82, has been gone now for about as many years as he lived.

And it was an anniversary that arrived with little general notice outside the walls of our newspaper where so many of us somehow maintain an inspirational connection to this man from a different era we never encountered.

The anniversary, coincidentally, arrived at the same time our offices were abuzz with news for the company business he created: Paddock Publications acquired five small daily newspapers in Southern Illinois along with seven other weeklies.

We'll leave the business strategies for another time and place. Suffice for now to say that these historic community newspapers summon us to meet our sacred obligations - both there and here - to both readers and community.

At once, they represent the romantic glories of their pasts and the hearty challenges of today's digital revolution.

"Our aim," as Hosea said: "To fear God, tell the truth and make money."

In committing ourselves to their revival, improvement and good works, we recommit ourselves also to ongoing improvement and good works here in the suburbs.

We believe in the power of the press - in all its platforms: print, digital and otherwise - to enhance life, to strengthen the community, to be a force for good.

We believe information is vital to civic well-being.

We believe society needs thoughtful but aggressive watchdogs.

We believe enlightened debate is integral to a healthy democracy.

And we believe that to serve a community, a newspaper must engage the citizenry, not just report.

All of this, Hosea's legacy reminds us, is part of the role of a newspaper.

But it is more. It is also the solemn record. Think back to Hosea, now gone along with his cluttered desk and horse-drawn carriage to a black-and-white age.

Time will continue relentlessly to push his era further away, pushing it soon beyond even the most aged memory.

But surviving all of time's erosion, written words remain. That signature of civilization is one of the characteristics that most distinguishes the human species from the rest of the animal kingdom.

We progress because of our capacity to pass on the written word.

In that word, Hosea's era lives on in the pages of the newspaper. Such is the power of the press. Not just for Hosea, but for all of us.