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When you can tell your story. That is power. And that’s what we do, empower our community to have a voice.
Jon Sims (Acoma Pueblo), independent journalist in The Paper.
From the desk of Pat Davis, Publisher
If you think your morning newspaper is a little thinner than it used to be, you’re right. In 2023 alone, the Farmington Daily Times was reduced to just one staff reporter for the whole paper and the Roswell Daily Record just announced that it is ending its daily print edition.
Here in ABQ, our Albuquerque Journal announced large-scale layoffs of reporting staff, including some of the paper’s longest-serving reporters and editors who knew our city as well as, or better, than anyone else.
But unlike some communities, reporters with great stories have another option in Albuquerque: our small but mighty independent outlet, The Paper.
Local reporters using The Paper. to tell their stories won more than a dozen local, state and national journalism awards in 2023 — including the National Presswomen’s Best In-Depth Reporting in the nation (Jon Sims on Missing, Murdered and Indigenous Women) and Best Local News Reporting (Gwynne Unruh, saving Elena Gallegos Open Space from development).
As we looked back on 2023 — and began planning for budgets for 2024 — we thought we’d ask them why having an independent outlet open to local journalists matters.
Here’s what they said…
Tabitha Clay, Independent Policing and Justice Reporter in The Paper.
Not every news outlet allows such hard-hitting looks at the real impact and issues of police, both from the side of the victim, and from the side of the police leaders. In fact, during my time at other news organizations, I was repeatedly told to “lay off” or stop looking at the illegal actions of certain law enforcement officials. Not so at The Paper. The leadership and team at The Paper. allowed me to follow the facts and report the stories as they happened, not as governmental or police leadership wanted them to be perceived.
– Tabitha Clay, The Paper.
Jonathan Sims, Acoma Pueblo & Albuquerque, reporting on Native issues in The Paper.
…For many years the news that emerged from tribal communities was often told by outsiders. Local viewpoints and information were often lost in this process. It was never our own voices. Never our own opinions.
The work of Native journalists is important in this age where there is a plethora of content. Not only because we are stepping out of the shadows and into the mainstream of American society. But it is important because our people play major roles in the workings of the world around them. Our ancestors worked to hard for our generation to survive and succeed. Part of that is telling our own stories. Informing our own people and providing the “outside” world with an idea of the struggles we face, but even more the celebration of what it is to be a Native person in today’s world.
When you can tell your story. That is power. And that’s what we do, empower our community to have a voice.
Jon Sims, The Paper.
Read more from Tabitha and Jon here.
We think having an alternative news option in Albuquerque matters. As a reader, we bet you do, too.
Unlike bigger papers that charge outlandish subscriptions just to read stories online, we make all of our stories free online and in print so the stories and voices of our community are told and read by everyone – not just those who can afford to pay.
Our advertisers (support local small biz supporting us!) help us cover the cost to print and deliver 10,000 free print issues each week but our readers’ donations pay for the stipends we pay to journalists to cover our city’s stories.
Like The Paper? Support the independent journalists writing it.
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Now through the end of the year, every donation is doubled by the New Mexico Local News Fund (thanks, friends!) so dig deep and double your impact for local journalists, today.