Veteran journalist Bert Etling will speak about “Sense of Place: Community journalism’s role in mediating community identity,” Thursday, March 9, as part of the Friends of Hannon Library Speaker Series for the 2022-23 academic year.

Community papers have long played a central role in collecting, curating and distributing information that documents and shapes what’s going on in local areas, helping define and articulate what a community thinks of itself. Etling will discuss the transition of that role as newspapers adapt to an evolving media landscape. For journalists the question is “Who are we and what are we doing here?”

Bert Etling is a longtime community journalist and the executive editor of Ashland.news, a nonprofit, community news site launched in January 2022 in Ashland, Oregon. Etling is also editor-in-chief of the Applegater, a community newsmagazine serving the Applegate Valley.

He previously edited the Ashland Daily Tidings from 2014 to 2019, leading a local news revival for the cherished community paper that saw a five-fold increase in local content and 30 percent increase in circulation. Before that, he edited The Cambrian, a weekly newspaper published by the San Luis Obispo Tribune, part of the McClatchy Corp.

A Zoom link will also be available on the Friends website (https://hanlib.sou.edu/friends/lectureseries2022-23.html)