On Saturday, the New York Times published an article praising the student journalists at the Michigan Daily for filling the news void left when The Ann Arbor News closed in 2009. The headline was amended from “When the Student Newspaper is the Only Paper in Town” to specify that it’s the only daily paper, and the article was later corrected to say The Ann Arbor News did not, in fact, shutter its print edition and end its online presence.

Correction to the New York Times article.

The original framing of the article still stands — if the Michigan Daily doesn’t cover something, people don’t know it happened, and whatever the present-day Ann Arbor News produces doesn’t count. The NYT’s mischaracterization of the Ann Arbor-area’s media landscape was disappointing, but it’s not entirely unique. The Chicago Tribune published a column in July on the 10-year anniversary of the death of Ann Arbor’s daily newspaper. The Michigan Daily did a piece in 2017 on “the twilight of newspapers in Ann Arbor.” Poynter has long followed the closure of The Ann Arbor News, and former staffers wax poetic about the final hours at their newspaper.

And yet, The Ann Arbor News still arrives on newsstands and driveways every Sunday and Thursday. I know the publication is not what it used to be. And trust me, I understand the significance of the loss of a daily newspaper. I dare say I have more than my fair share of nostalgia for newspapers; my college roommates prominently displayed my first print byline on the fridge in our apartment, and some of my most-cherished memories are from the time I spent cutting my teeth as a reporter at a small-town daily newspaper.

But since when did the number of days in print become the definitive measure of a publication? Printing news on a page doesn’t inherently make it better, and the internet is here to stay. Nearly every morning, I read the New York Times, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, MLive, Bridge Magazine, Crain’s Detroit and Chalkbeat Detroit, and I also keep tabs on Detour Detroit, Outlier Media, Deadline Detroit, Michigan Radio, Michigan Advance and The Alpena News, plus listen to newsy podcasts and catch the evening news on Detroit TV stations when I can. I subscribe to zero newspapers.

Without the ghosts of newspapers past clouding our vision, it becomes easier to see which sources of information actually prove most useful in our daily lives. Who’s telling you what your local elected officials are up to? How are your local schools performing? What businesses are opening and closing? How just is your county’s criminal justice system? How is that car accident that shut down the highway going to affect your evening commute?

The Feb. 21, 2019, print edition of The Ann Arbor News.

For Washtenaw County residents, The Ann Arbor News is doing the best job of answering those questions — on a daily basis, online. The coverage isn’t perfect, and thankfully, The Ann Arbor News (which is owned by MLive, which is owned by Advance Publications) doesn’t have to do the job alone. The Michigan Daily, Concentrate, All About Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor Observer, WEMU, Eastern Echo, Saline Post, Washtenaw Voice, WeLoveDexter, WeLoveAnnArbor, Dexter Sun Times, Manchester Mirror, Chelsea Update and various citizen bloggers also help keep Washtenaw County residents informed about what’s going on in their communities.

Plus, The Ann Arbor News is tackling even bigger issues, like who’s holding U-M fraternities accountable, why a man whose ex-wife and ex-girlfriend both met suspicious ends was still walking free, how Trump’s immigration crackdown has impacted southeast Michigan residents, the real reason a school principal abruptly left her job, what environmental issues like the Gelman dioxane plume and PFAS mean for Washtenaw County and why converting a downtown Ann Arbor parking lot into a park has divided the city. And those are just a few recent examples of the type of in-depth, local coverage that is unique to The Ann Arbor News.

Clearly, the statement that Ann Arbor doesn’t have a local newspaper is false, and the idea that news becomes inferior when it’s not printed on a page doesn’t make sense when so much of our lives takes place online. Quality journalism is alive and well in Washtenaw County, as those who are paying attention already know.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that the NYT piece came out as my husband Martin Slagter was headed to cover a Washtenaw County prosecutor candidate forum for The Ann Arbor News, in addition to filing stories throughout the day on a power outage in Ann Arbor, contamination in U-M pools and a barricaded gunman in Jackson County. His editor Khalil AlHajal worked that Saturday to help publish all those stories. Meanwhile, Aaron McMann was settling in to cover U-M football’s night game at Penn State, which meant he didn’t leave the stadium until 3 a.m., continued working until 6:30 that morning and ended up publishing 10 stories in 24 hours. Ryan Zuke also provided live game updates from Ann Arbor that night. Literally as the NYT story made the rounds online, journalists at The Ann Arbor News were reporting Ann Arbor’s news.

Lauren Slagter was a reporter at The Ann Arbor News/MLive from April 2016 to May 2019, during which time The Ann Arbor News was twice named Newspaper of the Year by the Michigan Press Association and received first place for General Excellence from the Associated Press, when competing with similarly-sized publications.