Una Cooper: Bowie community is losing something important today

Today marks the final edition of the Bowie Blade-News. I learned about the paper’s fate on June 24, just a few days before the third anniversary of the Capital Gazette shooting, and while the trial of the shooter was underway. The announcement was not unexpected, but I was profoundly saddened by the news and by the ongoing assault on community journalism. Some will say that the Blade won’t be missed or that it just hasn’t been the same paper that it was 10, 20, or 40 years ago. I know it has been a long time since we enjoyed the “On the Road” feature showed us how well-traveled Bowieites were or there were entertaining extended debates in the letters to the editor. It has not been a 3-section paper, completely devoted to the Bowie for a while, but I will be sorry to see it go.