I grew up in Swampscott. I taught there in both the middle and high schools. I thought I’d always bleed blue. On the day we bought our house, I told my then-fiancée that when our daughter quarterbacked the Powder Puff game in 2038 (!), I’d wear a Marblehead jacket — but a Big Blue T-shirt underneath.
But honestly, we felt at home almost immediately. We had friends close by — and even some who crossed the Swampscott border to visit. We got married at the lighthouse. We walk by the water and still think: We live here? We are grateful for that every day. And we feel responsible for making sure it stays the kind of place worth being grateful for.
We have two young daughters. We don’t know yet what Marblehead will mean to them, but we know what we want them to understand: The place you live is yours to participate in, and not just a place where things happen.
That’s why I joined the board of the Current. It’s also why the most recent date night we managed was Town Meeting. Make of that what you will.
Every week, we print 10,000 copies and deliver them free to every home and business in town. No outside owners, no parent company. We were founded by, and continue to be, a group of journalists and community members who believe Marblehead needs and deserves a real newspaper.
I believe in what the Current does. I believe we need a place where the who, what and why gets recorded. Despite online criticism to the contrary, we covered the override debate from every angle. We’re proud of that work. And the work that has gone into covering elections, graduations, celebrations, garden clubs, and whatever else we can fit. We take our job seriously because it’s important.
Recently, speaking right here in Marblehead, David Shribman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said this: “We are the last believers. We believe in the system, we believe in truth, while the rest of the country doesn’t believe in anything.”
The Poynter Institute recently noted, “What we once took for granted — the importance of a free press and the value of fact-based journalism — must now be regularly tended and protected.”
More than 2,500 local newspapers have closed since 2005, and more than half of all counties in America now have no local news source at all. These are news deserts. They’re places where no one is watching or asking questions. In other words, no one is paying attention.
In Mississippi, a nonprofit newsroom uncovered a $77 million welfare scandal in which money intended for the poorest families in the nation’s poorest state was quietly redirected. Reporter Anna Wolfe won the Pulitzer Prize for her work. The money was supposed to help children in poverty. Instead, among other things, it helped build a volleyball stadium. Without local journalists like Wolfe, that money stays hidden.
Marblehead is not a news desert. But keeping it that way takes support from the people who live here.
Supporting local journalism is a civic act. It’s the same spirit that drives us to go to Town Meeting, vote in our elections, or campaign for office. It’s how a community shows that accountability and shared information matter. In other words, “we’re paying attention.”
If you’ve ever relied on the Current before a big vote, or passed it to a neighbor, or just appreciated having a paper that takes Marblehead seriously, every dollar funds that. I ask you to help keep it going.
Please donate at marbleheadcurrent.org/donate.
Mark Schwartz is a member of the board of directors of the Marblehead Current.
