Karen turned out warm and caring, like everyone else at the famously friendly Community. She taught me how careful you must be, representing vulnerable people who put their trust in you. I still remember her going quote by quote through the most important stories with sources on the phone, explaining to them why she had written every sentence, reassuring them. Loading Kelmscott was rough. I remember us all once gazing disbelievingly through the one-way glass out the office window, at the woman pissing on the tyre of Karen’s parked car. The time a body was found floating in the river running 100 metres from that window. I learned to defend Armadale and Kelmscott and Thornlie and Gosnells like a local. I discovered Thornlie was full of not only fast food outlets but also houseproud elderly people with stunning gardens. How Armadale was full of passionate youth workers battling to keep Midnight Basketball alive for at-risk kids. How the Gosnells council made elaborate plans to increase parkland space and rezone for higher density redevelopments around train stations, long before “transit-oriented development” entered everyone’s vocabulary, and despite the lack of interest from the state agencies whose job it seemed to be to stall progress. How the local MPs toiled every day in poky shopping centre offices.

We reported on not just the state seats but the councils. We read their agendas and annual reports, sat through those long, late meetings so residents wouldn’t need to. Locals knew if there was something happening they needed to know, we'd report it. Karen Valenti on the job at the Comment. Credit:Marcelo Palacios Anyone could walk into the Comment office and demand to see us. The receptionist would put in a call to the back. Sometimes we’d groan. But we always went out and listened. People fundraising for cancer treatment, people with disabilities highlighting injustice, people betrayed then ignored by telcos and utilities providers. Misery in the shabby Armadale courthouse. Burglary victims. Centrelink debacles. Farmers and orchardists scratching out a living on Perth’s fringes. People who fell through the cracks of society’s giant machinery. We couldn’t solve all the problems but we put them all "on the record". My former editor Karen, devastated by Thursday's news, reminded me the Comment's readership area included four police stations, three councils, a monastery, a courthouse, many schools and businesses and a hospital. It also had a high proportion of Aboriginal people, migrants and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. “Comment News reporters wrote countless articles that were followed up by mainstream news organisations ... used agenda-setting campaign journalism to highlight injustice and bring about change at a federal government level," she said.

“Reporters had tight links to the community and treated every person with equal respect. They spoke to local politicians in the same tone as orchardists and environmentalists ... [got] to the heart of stories because they spoke to residents face to face and took a genuine interest in the community and its people. “We loved telling the stories about the people from the south-eastern suburbs and championing the causes of people who are too often ignored.” I'll add to that: we also described the good. The beauty of the Perth Hills. Talented kids going overseas to compete. Local school multicultural ceremonies. Tree plantings. Nannas turning 100. Our photographer Marcelo trekked to the hospital once a week to take photos of the babies born. He’d been there decades, so sometimes he saw those babies become parents themselves. A tremendously skilled photographer, he took equal care with the babies as he did with front-page news photos. And we took care with the captions. If we spelt a baby’s name wrong in print we would hear from their irate parents. We relayed warnings from the local cops about the latest hotspots. Printed sports results and match reports. Collated submissions for the Diary with details of bingo and crafting, pony club, library talks, bowls meets. Once management tried to remove the Diary and hastily reinstated it after howls of outrage from the oldies. State news doesn’t have time for this stuff. No one else is going to do it. It’s just gone.

Every "front" was crafted with love. Credit:Emma Young If you think it’s no big loss, that your local paper was kind of skinny and disappointing in the past few years anyway, you should know it wasn’t always that way. A local paper used to mean one or two journos, an editor and a photographer, a subeditor in Perth checking the spelling. Then Google and Facebook hoovered up all the advertising. The 55-page paper became 35 pages and more recently 20. The journos had to spike all the stories that wouldn’t fit. The remaining advertisers were even more valuable and gained more power. Editors like Karen used to resist putting ads on page 5. Then page 3. Eventually the ads made it on to the front page. I remember Karen on the phone yelling at management, fighting for every page, before she took voluntary redundancy in the first of several rounds.

Then photographers were cut. Only a few roamed ever wider circles. Marcelo, whose face was known throughout the south-east and was sometimes a better reporter than the reporters, took voluntary redundancy. Without writers a country becomes mute. Bryce Courtenay Then editors were cut. Multiple papers were combined under one “area” editor. Karen’s successor Rick, another passionate, experienced journalist and an Armadale local, took voluntary redundancy. Last year another “reshape” saw the Kelmscott office, along with all the other suburban offices bar Mandurah, closed and all remaining journos pulled into the city office. This reminded me of a dying person getting cold hands and feet, all their blood reserved for the vital organs. It should not have come as the shock it did to hear those limbs have now been amputated to save what is left. But what kind of life is left? A “digital presence” and an e-newsletter is not a community paper. And no doubt remaining journos will be asked to expand their patches and the inner papers will be the next to suffer.

Countless reporters now working state and national publications learned the ropes at Community. Every one of these wishes they had the ability to do better at their present job. They’re embarrassed by the mistakes creeping in, by their lack of time to go harder and deeper. Members of the public who refuse to pay for news or media consumption should make no mistake: all creative products cost money and time. The loss of both in our newsrooms means thousands of stories in Perth and WA are going untold. Go out and pay for a magazine, a newspaper or a digital subscription today, and remember the words of Bryce Courtenay: "without writers a country becomes mute."