New Bedford’s newspaper of record, the Standard-Times, is now owned by the Gannett Corporation, USA Today’s parent company. Nationally, with newspapers slowly replacing local news with syndicated content, New Bedford news consumers are rooting for the survival of community journalism. And we have been luckier than many communities. The Standard Times has made an effort to swim against the tide, and joining the New Bedford Guide, O Jornal and Dartmouth Week in filling the local news gap are two new community news upstarts, The Scallop! — and now the New Bedford Light.
After months of planning and community surveys, the New Bedford Light began publishing just this week. We received a note from one of the paper’s founders, former New Bedford mayor and NAACP member John Bullard:
“I want you to know that we launched The New Bedford Light today. The New Bedford Branch of the NAACP was very helpful to us when you sent out our survey several months ago. That helped us ascertain community needs which is essential to our mission of community journalism. Now that we are launched, the Branch could do us a further service by letting your membership know about us. We are free, non-profit news. As you can see from the first issue that analyzes the impact of COVID on New Bedford, we hope to provide information you cannot get anywhere else. And we hope the community will turn to us with information that needs to see the light of day. Community journalism is a two way street.”
We congratulate the founders of the New Bedford Light for their accomplishment and hope that this new project will fearlessly report on issues of social and racial equity.
