Located in the heart of Louisa, “The Central Virginian,” established in 1912, covers weekly breaking news and stories around Louisa County.
Upon walking in, the smell of fresh newspapers fills the air as they sit on the tables and in the racks near the front desk. The newest edition is always ready to be viewed.
Editor Mitchell Sasser prepares a new set of stories each week. Sasser travels around the county during the week to sit in on town meetings and acquire new ideas for stories.
The Central Virginian is held together by Sasser and two other journalists, John and Katherine. Sasser will also bring in others to help, like his publisher and a freelance designer.
“I’ve talked to people who worked at the Central Virginian 10-15 years ago, and they had all their separate beats,” Sasser said. “In this newsroom, we’re kind of responsible for covering all those different beats that used to have a dedicated person.”
Sasser and his team work each week to publish and produce. A dream for the newspaper could be to one day expand and offer new positions.
“The Central Virginian used to have a reporter about five years ago, whose job was to sit at the courthouse every Friday, and be provided information they could use for stories,” Sasser said. “I can’t spend my Fridays in a courtroom, but if the sheriff’s office releases something, I try to be on top of it and share that information.”
Since they no longer have all the same positions as they once did, Sasser has a lot of diverse topics and duties that he has to cover. All of these different things come from what would typically be several positions.
“Every Tuesday morning, I’m busy wrapping up my stories, tweaking headlines, getting all my photos together, and getting photo credits in,” Sasser said. “I also put together the community calendar.”
Despite doing much of the work on his own, he still has help. He gets this help from his colleagues and his freelancer. They sit down together and converse about everything they need to get accomplished. The freelancer, in specifics, works on non-article portions and segments.
“Our freelancer puts together all of the advertisements, and then I come in with the contents,” Sasser said. “For an hour, we sit down together and figure out what needs to go where.”
This type of collaborative communication and planning, on Sasser’s part, was reinforced through his experience in college at James Madison University. While in college, he worked for the newspaper, The Breeze.
“My college education prepared me for approaching and talking to people I don’t know, asking them questions about their new school club, how they felt about a school policy, what they like about JMU, those types of things,” Sasser said.
Over the course of Sasser’s career, internet use became prevalent, and the convenience of online newsletters disrupted the production of printed news. It is less common to see a younger person purchasing a newspaper in physical form than it is in digital form.
“If I had to be honest with myself, there is a chance the Central Virginian will not have a printed newspaper in 15 to 20 years,” Sasser said.
Whether one realizes it or not, people are constantly taking in news. The only issue that occurs is finding accuracy, now that Artificial Intelligence is used more often.
“I think the way people are talking about AI now is the way we were talking about the internet 20 years ago, saying things will not change,” Sasser said. “But it is absolutely going to change things. We have to figure out a way to adapt to it.”
Social media apps are where many newsreaders receive their information. However, social media relies on its users’ community, just as The Central Virginian relies on the community of Louisa residents.
“I think it is why we have survived for so long; our community,” Sasser said.
