A reader, April, left a comment on my recent post (Trying to) Buy Local. I started to reply in the comments section, but then decided it was a really good springboard for discussion. April writes:
I like Fake Plastic Fish’ take on what local means and that sometimes it’s not about geography at all. Sigh. I get a real kick out of seeing the “Buy Local!†campaign that is being printed in the GT. The Corvallis newspaper is owned by a conglomeration based in the Midwest that is in turn owned by a bunch of banks headed by the Deutsche Bank. Yup… our “local†paper is owned by the Germans! Gotta love it. Nothing wrong with the “buy local†message but it takes some real thought and soul-searching to discover what it really means to you as an individual. The GT appears to be brandishing the slogan as something politically correct to print to make their advertisers happy. Sigh.
Thank you for commenting, April! Before I respond, I should probably disclose that my husband works for the GT (not in advertising though), and so maybe it will sound like I’m defending them. I might be, a little, but I also do think quite a lot about these kinds of issues. I worked for a large daily newspaper in California for several years and it’s a funny industry… it kind of stays with you, even when your career takes you elsewhere.
I see a couple of topics that could be addressed here. One is the newspaper’s role in our community along with its message of “buy local”, and the other is what “local” means, which goes beyond the newspaper itself and is, as April rightly points out, something that individuals have to define for themselves.
I agree that it can be — at times — difficult to distinguish a sincere “buy local” message from one that feels like pandering to advertisers and readers. On the other hand, I think the GT truly wants to give their readers the info we’re asking for, and there’s no doubt that there is increased interest in buying local across a spectrum of goods and services. We need a middle ground so that it doesn’t seem to be a joke or just the latest bandwagon that will be abandoned for the next batch of buzzwords. I believe there are, at least, individuals at the GT who are sincere in this message.
I don’t see the ownership of the GT by Lee Enterprises to be problematic. The paper has been produced here since the early 1900s, growing out of a combination of two papers that go back even further than that. The GT operates here in town, is printed next door in Albany, and provides jobs & contracts to members of the community here in the mid-valley.
There are several, dare I say most, local merchants who we could point to and say they aren’t strictly “local” in terms of the goods they sell. Red Horse Coffee — one of our favorite places — sources their coffee from a company in Washington which, in turn, sources coffee from all around the world (of course). But Robin and John at Red Horse are our neighbors in the community, and so are the people running the daily operations at the GT, DH and LE.
A larger corporation behind a newspaper is pretty common — I’m not sure how many independent newspapers are still in existence today, but I wouldn’t guess the number to be very high.
So, I’m interested… any readers out there want to comment and step through some of your thought processes when you’re looking to “buy local”? And what do you think of the GT’s advertising campaign?
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3 Responses to Does “local” apply to people, or things? Or a little of both?
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Craftgawker
Etsy Mini
I worked at the GT for five years and have mixed feelings. Yeah, Lee Enterprises is a very midwestern company and often the decisions from up on high don’t mesh well with what I would consider to be local values. However, most of the people who work at the GT are indeed locals as much as anyone else who currently lives here, which varies anyway. How many Corvallis residents have *never* lived anywhere else? Very, very few. (The German bank part is silly… it’s like saying I own a share of stock in Microsoft and thus Microsoft is really a Corvallis company instead of a Redmond, WA.)
Buying local on the other hand is *always* a good philosophy. It’s more about supporting small, local businesses whenever possible because that is a more direct way of helping people in your community. More of the dollar you spend at The Book Bin will stay in our community than a dollar spent at Borders. That’s even more true when it comes to food and perishable goods. Even if the message did come from Lee Enterprises, it applies to the people who live in Davenport, Iowa as much as it applies to those of us here, so it’s a good message to support either way.
That’s a difficult question. Not only the “what is local” but “is local worth it?” Recall that the reviled WallyMart got its start by bringing the merchandise selection and prices of the Big City to small town folk — and they loved Sam Walton. (Who would be turning over in his grave at what his offspring has become, starting with the china connection — anybody remember “made in USA”?) When we first moved to Prescott, we were continually annoyed by the “we don’t have it in stock, but we can order it” response of local merchants. We weren’t aware that way back then, Arizona had an onerous inventory tax — later repealed.
There are levels of “localness”. For example, the McDonald’s or the TruValue Hardware are more local than The Olive Garden or Home Depot, because the former are franchised to local people, while the latter pair are run from corporate HQ.
And, as a tourist town, there’s yet another angle to the “local” vs. “corporate” problem. Our best local (and most uniquely “local”) stores cater not to locals but to tourons. Yet restaurants remain the business where it’s easiest for everybody to spend money locally.
You’ve opened a can of worms & I could go on and on…I’ll stop here while the stopping is good!
[...] Here’s an interesting blog from a Corvallis writer about the G-T’s “Choose Local!” campaign. It’s true, of course, as April writes, that the G-T is owned by Lee Enterprises, a publicly traded company that’s based in Davenport, Iowa; the G-T has been a Lee newspaper since 1969. [...]