I grew up reading newspapers, as many people my age — 54 — did.

In my large household of five children, my stepfather and I were the only early risers, and as even a child in elementary school, I would get myself up, make my way to the kitchen, fix myself a cup of coffee from the percolator — lots of milk and sugar — and grab whatever section of The Natchez Democrat my stepfather wasn’t reading.

Sometimes the two of us would sit silently. But most often, we’d discuss what we read in the paper, kind of like, “Wow, did you see this?”

And we were just as critical of errors in that newspaper then as our readers are of those in our newspaper today.

When he died unexpectedly in 1995, I was living in Michigan. I flew home, of course, and distinctly recall waking up the next morning in my childhood home and wandering into the kitchen. No one else was awake. No coffee was brewed. Newspaper was still in the driveway. It was like taking a bullet.

That newspaper and our morning ritual was a wonderful part of my life. It makes me sad that fewer and fewer young people, and even their parents these days, don’t have time with a newspaper as part of their daily routine.

I didn’t set out to work in newspapers or journalism. I needed a job when I was at home during college breaks. I had worked on my high school newspaper staff, so I wandered into The Democrat. Its new editor at the time, who would later become president of our newspaper company, needed someone to pick up police reports. That became my job. I started writing little crime stories, then feature stories, and quickly, I was hooked. I changed my major in my junior year, and that’s all she wrote, so to speak.

Today begins the week-long celebration of National Newspaper Week. Even though newspapers are a very different thing from what they were when I began my first full-time reporting job in 1985, they still have an important part to play in every community.

We’re still the place you know you can go — whether it be in our printed newspaper or our website — to find out what’s happening in our community. You know you can read The Vicksburg Post if you want to find out what the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen are up to. It’s in this newspaper where you can find out the latest on the happenings of businesses downtown, or stories about the latest in high school sports or even simply what’s going on via the newspaper’s community calendar.

And, readers of this newspaper, like most of other community newspapers, are encouraged to send us their thoughts and opinions as letters to the editor.

Our industry has changed and continues to change dramatically, thanks to ever-changing technology, but make no mistake about it: Community newspapers like ours are still vital in keeping readers informed.
Jan Griffey is editor of The Vicksburg Post. You may reach her at jan.griffey@vicksburgpost.com. Readers are invited to submit their opinions for publication.