My last Holland Sentinel column?

What follows may be my last Sentinel column. I hope not, but the local paper seems to be in turmoil

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As a second-semester sophomore, I became associate editor of the Calvin College Chimes, my college newspaper. To say that I was a journalist would be a stretch. The college at the time had no journalism major, nor even any journalism courses, as far as I knew.

But every Friday, our tiny editorial staff produced a tabloid-sized newspaper with news, opinion, sports, and even movie reviews. We decided our editorial strategy, wrote provocative headlines, and made sure our grammar and spelling could withstand the English faculty’s careful review.

I was thrilled to be part of that newspaper. I came of age when previous editorial staffs had published daring essays and provocative opinions that caused nightmares for college administrators. As a high school student, I very much wanted to be part of that tradition, which caused my parents no small concern.

When my year on the editorial staff began, the college president told us he had only two rules for us: the first was that there were to be no cartoons or caricatures of him, and the second was no contact with the board of trustees. We were not to communicate with trustees or even send them copies of our weekly publication. (We kept the second rule, but in the last edition of the term we published a very respectful drawing of a college president we came to know and love.)

I am reminded of those long-ago newspaper experiences because of what has happened to local newspapers during my lifetime. The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University reports that local newspapers disappeared at a rate of 2.5 per week during 2023, leaving more than 200 counties across the U.S. as “news deserts,” meaning that “more than half of U.S. counties now have limited access to reliable local news and information.”

After college I decided to go to seminary and not a school of journalism. Friends at the time joked that parish ministry obviously seemed more lucrative to me than a career in journalism, but the sad truth is that they were mostly right. A career in journalism isn’t what it once was. I grew up with visions of becoming Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein and working for the Washington Post, but today not many of those jobs are still available. Newsroom layoffs, even for well-known newspapers like the Post, occur at an alarming rate.

Over the years, I have tried to support local newspapers, no matter where I’ve lived – the Daily Herald in the western suburbs of Chicago, the Ann Arbor News in, well, Ann Arbor, and even the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida. I have subscribed to these newspapers and have occasionally contributed to them. And now, in retirement, I subscribe to and occasionally contribute to the Holland Sentinel. Supporting the local newspaper is one of my personal values.

I remember the early days of the Sentinel because my grandmother used to live in Holland, and every time my family visited I would find the latest copy (mostly, as I recall, to compare the comics section to the one found in the Grand Rapids Press, which I read every day).

When I moved to Holland in retirement, I found that a young woman named Sarah Leach was editor of the Sentinel and that she was making the Sentinel relevant again – not through an expanded comics section, but by closely following local politics. Not everyone liked what she wrote (which is true for most reporters and opinion-page writers who are worth their salt), but what she wrote was good and worth paying attention to.

And now Sarah Leach is gone, fired from her position for reasons that still seem murky to me. I don’t read every word in the Sentinel, but I read most of them, and I don’t remember any explanations for Sarah Leach’s departure or, for that matter, any words about her successor. (Newspapers can be terrific at covering politics and local businesses, but they often fail miserably when it comes to providing news about themselves.)

I miss Sarah Leach, who was nominated last year for a Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. I heard her speak one time to the members of the Hope Academy of Senior Professionals (she was on a panel of journalists), and she received a standing ovation. If I had been her boss, I think I would have kept her around. But now I plan to do what I can to support her successor. I plan to pay for my subscription and contribute an occasional opinion piece like this one. Not having a newspaper in Holland, Michigan, would be a shame.

(Photo: Since I became a columnist for the Holland Sentinel, I have contributed columns from all over the world…okay, from some parts of Europe, but still.)