In there area where I live there are a lot of small town newspapers. I am close enough to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to be fortunate enough to see a lot of good historic stuff. Reenactments, tours, visitors, museums, and even the annual Gettysburg Bike Week. I also write the local Gettysburg Blog.

During the course of writing my blog I subscribe to Google Alerts that use the word Gettysburg in any form. Whether it be Gettysburg alone, Gettysburg, Pa. or Gettysburg Pennsyania, I want to see it. I also subscribe to Google Alerts for both York County and Adams County. Interestingly, the paper that I see the most stories in for anything related to Gettysburg or Adams County is the Hanover Evening Sun. Bear in mind, of course, that Hanover is located in York County.

I have often found a story related to Gettysburg that I found in the Hanover Evening Sun that I didn’t find in the Gettysburg Times, the paper that covers Gettysburg. I find this to be rather fascinating. Stories that I’d expect to see in the Times don’t end up there and stories that shouldn’t appear in the Evening Sun do. That brings up a very interesting question, How do local newspaper editors choose what is important enough for their local newspapers?