by Oscar Tamsen

Since the height of the national Covid Pandemic lock-down three years ago, the Australian Government has been urging regional and metropolitan citizens to concentrate on re-creating a greater sense of community throughout the country.

According to the Departments of Health, Human Rights and Aged Care, greater community knowledge and consciousness is one of the leading ways to gain better understanding, personal health and social contact, among many other life-giving advantages.

Typical of this community re-building advice offered by the Government is that of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

“Most of us,” the Institute points out, “have no other independent ways of learning how the world goes one way or another. Pretty much everything we learn comes through the media and the printed word. Poor communities have poor health and lack progress and the recent pandemic had an impact on this.”

One could add to this by saying that good newspapers beget good communities — and vice versa. There is no doubt, however, that we on the Clarence will return to our stronger social pre-pandemic state with the help of time and re-gaining inter-personal communication following our mandated separation as a result of the fear of Covid contagion.

As far as our region in Northern New South Wales is concerned, your ‘Clarence Valley Independent’ is your community’s principal committed newspaper, acting as the conduit between all people and all forms of local activity.

The continuing aim of this 30-year-old service publication is to ensure that everyone in the area has the potential to immerse themselves in the community, whether it is by way of an interest in the wide range of local news, in local sports and social clubs, entertainment venues, service organisations, Council matters, entertainment or politics.

As the Government experts point out, a community newspaper is the fountainhead that keeps readers in touch with literally everything they need around them.

It creates a sense of community between its various pages each week, giving people a feeling of togetherness and belonging — and assurance that their social interests and needs can be met.

During the difficult pandemic lock- down days, many clubs and groups lost their members through concern for catching the virus — and even home entertainment became something of a problem.

As a result of the pandemic, one leading service club in Yamba was paired down to only six members compared to a very substantial pre-Covid roll-up. Charitable organisations were also seriously affected by able volunteers staying away in isolation for fear of catching the virus.

Since those comparatively recent days, your community newspaper has become all the more important as we all struggle one way or another against the added problem of inflation, high prices and a sagging world-wide economy.

With an increasing number of people still experiencing some form of loneliness or mental stress from our Covid days, your local community newspaper stands as the virtual glue needed to bind all of us together.

Building connections with others is inherent in human nature. From the time of tribal gatherings to our present-day social get-togethers, community knowledge and interactions have been strengthened by the spread of community news and information.

In more recent days of yore, local news was indeed passed on over time by backyard garden fence gossipers but, today, your local newspaper provides it all in one reliable hit each Wednesday.

On the Clarence, your community newspaper competes more than very favourably with its hi-tech counterparts on national TV and on our computer screens. Without such a news source, our community would, in effect, become a comparative desert of knowing what is happening in our immediate neighbourhoods.

As Britain’s former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, claimed, community newspapers are the oldest surviving form of mass media communication, and the power of their printed words is the stuff that healthy communities are made of.

Local newspapers, such as the Clarence Valley Independent, have historically been regarded as the most reliable, easily available sources of people sharing information and knowledge that we have on this planet.

What price can one therefore place on such an important part of our lives, our readers may ask? From the beginning of next month, the weekly purveyor of all your vital local community and sporting news, entertainment and TV guide will no longer be free but will cost you less than half a cup of coffee a week due to the present rising price of literally everything.

We therefore look forward to continue hearing and publishing your news, receiving your letters and offering you our dedicated service of providing all our readers with more input into the further development of our growing community.