Newspapers are the bedrock of our community.
Quite often, we will be the only people at the city council or school board meeting. Sometimes other media will read it and possibly do a story if the subject is  controversial. However, there have been many, many meetings where the only people sitting there were the Tribune.
As other media in the area, we take around 20 papers a month. We get story ideas from them, but mostly we generate our own stories by doing the legwork.
That legwork includes attending meetings and talking to people.
We don’t copy and paste but write our own stories, unlike some. Guess where nearly all of them would be without the Tribune?
We send stories to the Associated Press. If you see a story about Great Bend in Kansas City, most likely it came from us.
We are the watch dogs of the community.
People don’t always like it, but they definitely don’t like it when it’s not there.
It’s not an easy job. We get screamed at for telling the truth and sometimes people try to kill the messenger. We get screamed at for being human and making mistakes.
We have a website for those that like to get news online.
Guess where that news comes from? It would be papers across the state and especially our own.
We are also the best consolidator of news-and the most accurate.
Most journalists are idealists who try to present the news fairly. We work holidays, evenings, weekends  with two weeks vacation per year for less than a teacher.
Advertising pays our wages. Subscriptions pay the cost of the paper and delivery. There once was an unspoken agreement-we’ll cover your event and you’ll help pay for our wages.
No longer. Plus, the U.S. Postal Service is trying to put us out of business.
Maybe we’re crazy, but most of us still love it.

Karen La Pierre