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?