Differences between the small-town and not-so-small-town

(Note: I would've posted a link to the newspaper for my hometown, but the ability to view articles is incredibly limited without a subscription.)

So, I'm not from Savannah. I'm from a teensy-weensy town southwest of here. We don't have a daily newspaper, but we do have a weekly publication that's tends to be a good, solid local newspaper that's even won a few national awards.

The last time I went home, I took a little bit of time to notice the differences between Savannah's newspaper and my hometown's.

First, there's not a lot going on in my hometown. Let's be real: My hometown has a population of less than 4000 (the overall county has a population of less than 20,000), crime is fairly low, most everyone owns a home, and we're too far away from everything to have anyone terribly interesting come visit (unless you count Jack Kingston, who fascinates my ADD brain sometimes). If a cop screws up and gets fired (not even neccesarily , we find out (because our police force has a total of about 6 regular officers on the force so if one goes missing, we notice).

Second, if there's not a lot going on in town, there's not a lot to report. This is possibly why, if you were to look at my hometown's newspaper, you'll find front-page articles about football games (we only have 1 high school in the county, so there's not a lot to report there either), projects of school children (Dr. Seuss week and the first weeks of school tend to get a lot of attention), and the passing of life-long residents. Like all small towns, there's a fair share of city governmental drama (i.e.: we have city manager drama as well), but even that seems to be at a minimum. The most extended arguement tends towards being city-county disputes on who has to pay for what.

Third...everyone knows everything about everybody, part of that is due to how the paper runs. Anytime we get a new football coach, new principal at a school, anything like that, there's information about their family (and, if they're married, where their spouses are employed, etc).

I say that to say this: My hometown newspaper has a public interest/lifestyle oriented feel, as opposed to a 'news' oriented feel, just because of the fact that there's not much actually considered 'news' actually happening. Is it the best? Not neccessarily, but it works for the market it serves.