Michael D. Davis.

Two weeks ago, I went to the gas station to get the paper. It was Sunday, and I wanted to do the crossword puzzle. You, as I did, probably assume this would be a rather innocuous, banal task; well, you assume wrong.

My indecision between the Gazette and the Register had me purchasing both. I went to the register to check out and slung my papers on the counter. The cashier scanned the papers and read me off the total, it was at this moment that she decided to make a comment about how high priced the paper had gotten. If I had kept my mouth shut, I would’ve got away scot-free, but instead, I decided to say, “Well, you know the local paper is only a dollar.”

The cashier quickly responded by telling me that the local paper was useless. That there’s nothing in it. She said that she could walk up and down Main Street and learn more about what’s going on in town than if she read the paper. As the cashier stood before me, slagging me off with a smile, I reached down to my press pass, which is constantly attached to the lapel of my vest. I listened and twirled the press pass, I flicked the press pass, I believe I even pulled it away and had it snap back into place by it’s retractable lanyard. The cashier didn’t notice. It’s the smile that remained on her face throughout her soliloquy that got me. I’ve never before taken such gleeful criticism of my own work from someone outside my family. I ended the exchange with a polite, but curt, thank you and good day.

Call it fate, coincidence, or serendipity, but at 3 a.m. that same night I was reading that copy of the Register. In that copy of the Register was a column entitled, “Why some towns lose local news, and others don’t,” by guest columnist Abby Youran Qin. The article was very educational, and for someone who works for a small town newspaper, quite depressing. However, there was a line in there that resonated with me. It said that newspapers in little rural towns like ours, “can survive by cultivating loyal readerships within their communities.” I was encouraged by that sentence, then I thought of the cashier slagging me off, and I was discouraged by that sentence.

I then thought about some advice my friend Mr. Knott once gave me. He told me to reach out to people who inspire me because it can open up a correspondence. My editor summed up this sentiment by quoting the journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and saying, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

So, I emailed Ms. Qin. I told her all about the Tama-Toledo News Chronicle, and how we’ve been trying to get more subscribers, and I asked if she had any thoughts. I figured my chances were fifty-fifty that I’d get a reply from Ms. Qin, who is a PhD student in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but I got one within 48 hours.

Apparently, having weird reporters randomly email her from a small town that she’d never heard of asking for advice concerning a paper she’d never read isn’t in her usual wheelhouse. With that being said, she did have a few thoughts concerning things the paper could try or do. Having been originally encouraged by a single sentence, I can’t describe to you the effect Ms. Qin’s email had on me.

So, there ya have it. I drove half a mile to get the paper on Sunday, emailed a PhD student on Tuesday, and got a reply that reinforced my ambitions for the Chronicle on Thursday. Nonetheless, I don’t think I’ll be changing the cashier’s opinion on the paper anytime soon. She had a lot of critiques, and If I hadn’t quickly paid for my papers and left, I’m sure she’d still be telling me about them.