Don't forget: National Newspaper Week starts Sunday

Cartoon by Marc Murphy of the Louisville Courier Journal; not
in the National Newspaper Week resource package, but apropos.

Just a reminder: National Newspaper Week starts Sunday, and this year's theme is "Think F1rst — Know Your 5 Freedoms," a celebration of freedom of the press and its role in supporting democracy. The event is sponsored by Newspaper Association Managers, the consortium of North American trade associations representing newspapers on the state, regional and national level.

Organizers have provided a host of free resources you can use to help your local paper observe the week, including editorials, editorial cartoons, studies about the importance of journalism, and links to related sources like Trusting News and the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

"It's more important than ever to promote the importance of newspapers as the primary fact-finders for a republic that has become confused about what the facts are, and the difference between fact and opinion," says Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and publisher of The Rural Blog. "And newspapers need to remember that difference, too, as they present their material to readers."

The "Think F1rst" theme is an extension of a campaign developed in 2018 by Media of Nebraska; a number of other state broadcast and press associations adopted and expanded the program, relaunching it on a nationwide level in August 2019.