This week marks the 79th annual National Newspaper Week. This is a recognition of the service of newspapers and their employees across North America and is sponsored by Newspaper Association Managers.

The theme for this year’s newspaper week is “Think F1rst — Know Your 5 Freedoms.”

Every day we send reporters out into the community to report — not just on feature stories or ribbon cuttings, but also hard-hitting news.

We think it is important for people to know what is going on in their city, on their street and in their community, and we like to think we play some small roll in helping people find the information they need to live their lives in an informed matter.

We serve the community with coverage of community events, major arrests, drug busts and local government. The newspaper plays an important role in informing the community of news that is truthful, concise and objective. W

Freedom of the press gives us the right to report news or circulate opinion without censorship from the government. Sometimes that means reporting facts that are less than flattering to local to our local government. However, we would argue that those stories are the most important ones to write because in order to fix problems in our community — whether they be crime related or litter in the lake — those problems must first be brought to light. We also get to feature interesting people in our community, who have achieved remarkable things or have an interesting hobby We are thankful for all of our readers that trust us to give them quality and honest news in a timely manner and for the businesses who advertise with us and trust us to promote their businesses.

Our journalists at The LaGrange Daily News work hard to cover the things that people in our community need to know. It’s a role we don’t take lightly.