“A newspaper is the center of a community, it’s one of the tent poles of the community, and that’s not going to be replaced by Web sites and blogs.”

I used that quote by novelist Michael Connelly in another column published Thursday in a sister paper to The Easley Progress.

That quote sums up the way I have always felt about newspapers. I have always described them as the mechanism that creates the tapestry of the community it serves.

And since August 2012, I have felt that way about The Easley Progress and its sister publications The Pickens Sentinel, The Newberry Observer and The Union Times. At one point, just last year in fact, that list included the Powdersville Post, one of the trio of papers handled out of the offices of The Progress and The Sentinel.

We shuttered that paper and now use it only as a digital product.

That list also included The Herald Independent, a small twice-weekly paper in Fairfield County, a good hour or so drive south from here.

But on Thursday — the same Thursday mentioned in the first paragraph of this column — we printed The Herald’s last edition. The newspaper business, as you might have guessed, is a business where making money is kind of high on the list of priorities.

It’s not that we didn’t try. We did. And like tired word warriors who give and give until we can’t give anymore, we faced facts. Interesting use of the term since that’s what we pride ourselves on providing our readers.

I can’t help but wonder if I had tried harder, worked longer, yelled more, yelled less, slept less, wrote more, pushed harder, stood up taller, bucked the nay-sayers a little more forcefully …

I can’t help but wonder if it would have been enough. I have to let myself believe there would have been a moment in time when it would have been enough. But, honestly, I don’t know.

I admit I am sad about it. Knowing a newspaper is publishing its last edition is akin to knowing your favorite TV show is going off the air. Forever. It leaves an emptiness in the pit of your stomach that you just can’t put words to, much less accept. For a long time.

Eh, you’ve got other papers you can concentrate on, I hear you saying. It’s not as easy as that. You see, we long-haul newspaper people don’t just “work” at a newspaper. We live it. We breathe it. We get mad at it. We defend it. We stand up for it. We fight for it tooth and nail because to us, it’s not JUST a newspaper. It’s much, much more.

It’s who we are. It’s what we do. It ingrained in our DNA the same way a thrill-seeker’s wiring gives him or her the ability to jump off the side of a mountain. I could never do that in a million years but you know what? My guess is most people would be as afraid of doing what we do as I am of tumbling off Trump Tower with a parachute strapped to my back.

Despite not being from Pickens County or living here, I feel like I am home every time I travel up here. I’ve come to know some folks well enough to give them a hug when I see them or call them by their first name. I can actually find my way around without a map now. Well, I can drive from Point A to Point B with no hand signal instructions from my passengers. I call that a win …

The Easley Progress and The Pickens Sentinel remind me of my days as a green reporter at my hometown newspaper. Days back then weren’t full of exciting and breaking stories but there was enough news to fill up a paper every day.

We didn’t have the internet or cell phones. There was no YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram or Twitter. Google had not even crossed the brainwaves of its creator and Facebook was something a science fiction writer might come up with.

People read books by holding them in their hands. Families watched the news after supper. Parents stayed up late to watch the last news broadcast. At breakfast, the cycle started again.

Newspapers were delivered in the afternoon. None of this morning stuff back then. I remember the thrill I used to get when my mother would send me to the mailbox to retrieve the paper that had just been delivered.

I remember how it felt in my hands, the way the paper crinkled when I grabbed it. The way the ink would make my fingers turn black. The way my daddy looked while he read the paper after supper. The way my mother could put it back together and it look like she had never touched it.

The invention of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle did no favors for the newspaper industry. Fast-forward to the introduction of cell phones, Facebook and Twitter and suddenly the president can’t trip while walking to Air Force One and it not show up somewhere almost instantly.

But I digress. While some are bound and determined to declare that the newspaper is a dying animal, I am one who will not.

Why? It’s simple, really: Papers like the one you are holding in your hands do what CNN and Twitter and Facebook can’t, don’t and won’t do: make you their priority, day in and day out, year after year, century after century.

We do — and we will.

In closing, thank you for reading this paper. If you are a subscriber, thank you. If you’re not, think about it. We would love to have you become a part of our family.

Now if you’ll pardon me, I have a few tent poles I need to check on.

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From the Publisher’s Desk

Patricia M. Edwards

Patricia M. Edwards is the group publisher and regional editor for Civitas Media’s properties in South Carolina, which includes The Easley Progress.