The number of people currently working inside Bee Publishing Company’s office and printing facility has been reduced — temporarily, we hope — while Newtown and the world continue to contend with the coronavirus. Our team has been reduced, akin to the number of events that have also diminished locally since mid-March.

Things have slowed overall, but town boards continue to conduct business. Special events are happening. Education is happening, even if it looks very different than any other academic year. Businesses are opening, and closing. Fires, accidents, births, weddings, and deaths. Life. It happens, and we cover it all.

Our job at The Newtown Bee is to make sure the events of this town are recorded. Newspapers not only share current news; they become, with the publication of each new issue, the keeper of history. This newspaper prides itself in presenting and recording this hyperlocal news. “Newtown” is our middle name, after all.

Newtown is very lucky to have a hyperlocal newspaper. According to The Poynter Institute, this year alone the United States has lost 7,000 journalism jobs. Sixty-six newsrooms have closed. Advertising revenue is down 42 percent. And now there are 200 counties across America without a local newspaper. When newspapers fold, they generally do not return. The history of a town without a newspaper becomes more difficult to research. This is referred to as an expanding news desert.

Researchers often contact us to help with their work. In nonpandemic times, we often have groups visit our office for tours. One of the highlights of many tours is opening bound volumes, and showing our guests what was happening in town the week they were born. On pages that are browning with age, visitors see the news that filled that week’s newspaper. They read about meetings that were held, special presentations in schools, what was playing at Edmond Town Hall, the cost of beef at local butcher shops, and the cost of a new coat. They see all of this and more because it was captured in the newspaper that has been focusing on this town for more than 143 years.

The newspaper is a broad stroke across interests. Look at any page in any newspaper, and you see stories and advertisements for myriad subjects bumping up against each other. Schools. Politics. Emergencies. Obituaries. General News. Entertainment. Features. Commentaries and letters to the editor. Social media cannot claim that.

Times have changed, but we are still here, reporting on all things Newtown. We continue to add to the permanent record of what has happened here. Newtown, for now, does not have a news desert. We count on our subscribers, newsstand vendors, and advertisers to help us continue this important work. When we print The Newtown Bee each week, or post to our website, we offer, to the best of our efforts, factual coverage of all local news. Those stories, photos and advertisements become part of the permanent record of this town of 27,500 souls. That has been our mission since June 1877.

This week’s editorial is by Newtown Bee Associate Editor Shannon Hicks.