Clifton Residents Launch New Online Newspaper – The Clifton Times

Image

In response to the decline in local news seen over the past few years, a group of long time Clifton residents have created a new online news site for Clifton. The Clifton Times will help city residents stay up to date about current events with a hyper local focus on the Clifton community.

In a city the size of Clifton with over 80,000 residents and expansive ethnic diversity, Clifton has landed on lists of the top most diverse cities in the State and Country several times over the last decade. A city of this scope can be challenging for residents to navigate, especially new residents. With more of Clifton’s local news bought up by national conglomerates, local coverage has diminished. There is no local paper with online news about the city government, schools or all the events happening across town to help busy residents stay connected and informed. The Clifton Times hopes to change that, and create a site people can rely on for local coverage.

The drastic change seen in local news coverage across the US  is not unique to Clifton. As the business model of newspapers changed and news moved online, many small newspapers were either bought out by national companies or simply closed their doors. This has created “news desserts” in many towns and counties around the country where some communities have no source for local news. To further complicate this, much of a town’s history can be lost online when local papers close.  Some content may be stored online in “archives” but require time consuming key word searches to find stories.  This means that the history of news in a town can be completely lost to a Google search, since archived articles are not found by search engines. Over the long term this lack of news will have a negative impact on not just our sense of community and history, but also the strength of democracy, as local elections depend on an engaged and informed community of voters.

Collectively, The Clifton Times brings together over 30 years of community involvement, volunteerism and a desire to keep the community informed of the many good aspects of life in Clifton.  We encourage anyone interested in getting involved, sponsoring an ad, or becoming a member to reach out to us!

I'm interested
I disagree with this
This is unverified
Spam
Offensive