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It pays to remember that local news did not exist before New York printer Benjamin Day decided to give it a try to attract readers to his idea for a daily advertising sheet, launched on Sept. 3, 1833. Before Day and The Sun, "news" was either polemic or propaganda or tabular, praised by ideological supporters and condemned by opponents. Thanks to Day, and his belief that the common person most wanted to read about themselves and their personal interests, rather than the "big" issues of the era, the concept of objective news was born and soon became so pervasive that the eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon would later write, "If it says it in The Sun, it is so."

Trust in local news is built not on the education and erudition of the news staff, but on the day-to-day effort of reporters and editors to cover the minutiae of the daily life of their readers, from school plays to house fires, from random acts of kindness to random acts of violence. The newspaper which can do this, and do it at a reasonable cost for its readers, builds the credibility upon which to say, "It is so."