“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” — Newton’s Third Law

“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” — unknown

Life is all chickens and eggs.

To fix B, you have to fix A. But the changes you make to A make things harder when you get to C, even though fixing B might make C easier.

Which is the chicken, and which is the egg? Which should go first?

Battle Creek’s city boundaries touch four public school districts.

Schools of Choice is a big deal there. Lots of parents live in one district but enroll their kids in another, either chasing a program offered at the district across town or fleeing some perceived problem at the district in which they live.

The biggest net loser of students in that contest is Battle Creek Public Schools, which has struggled for years with lower academic achievement and a slightly higher incidence of in-school violence. The perception of the district in much of the community is worse than the reality.

It’s hard to begrudge any parent who decides it’s best to take their children to another school. Every parent wants their children to have the best opportunities, to be the safest they can be.

But every child who leaves Battle Creek Public Schools takes with them several thousand dollars in state aid. I’ve often wondered what BCPS might have been able to accomplish with all of that money (several million dollars, according to my reporting a decade ago at the Battle Creek Enquirer) if those families had decided to stay.

The district could hire more interventionists specialized in helping kids falling behind academically. It could add more extracurriculars, more afterschool programs. Would it be enough to improve the schools? To make those families want to stay?

Parents left because — in their mind, at least — BCPS got bad. But maybe BCPS got bad because parents left.

Chickens and eggs.

It’s the same way with newspapers.

My ideal Alpena News would be several pages thick, chock full of nothing but local and perhaps state news, only the most historic of national and international stories and photos. Most national news would be delivered by a local writer telling readers how national events affect our region.

We would make it to every county board meeting across the four counties we cover, the city council meetings of all our towns, and we would have a pulse on the goings-on of every township.

I’d love to do those things because newspapers bring tangible value to their communities. Businesses with a newspaper in which to advertise do better in sales. Communities with a newspaper have better voter turnout and more civic participation in clubs, groups, fundraisers, and events. They also have lower government spending, less government debt, and fewer instances of government corruption.

But it takes an incredible level of resources to do such a thing, and times have been hard on our industry. The rise of the internet and especially social media splintered the advertising market and provided a never-before-seen amount of content to take away readers’ attention. Like every industry, the coronavirus hit newspapers hard because it hit our advertisers and our subscribers hard.

We cannot deny that newspapers as an industry right now give people less than they gave before (though they still give a great deal). And, like those parents fleeing BCPS, I can understand the reader who might want to turn away.

But, as in BCPS, there are chickens and eggs to consider, here.

Every reader who leaves because we’ve printed fewer pages lessens our ability to print more. Every advertiser who steps away because they’re dissatisfied with the national news lessens our ability to write more local news.

Conversely, every subscriber, advertiser, and casual reader who picks up a copy of The News at their local newsstand helps us provide the great service we are proud to provide to our community. Great thanks go to each of them and, as we climb slowly out of the coronavirus era, there are more and more people to thank.

I wrote last week of the long game of newspapering — the idea that, if one edition angers you, hold on, because the next will make you happy.

Consider this column a sequel.

Continue supporting your local paper, because that’s how we get through the lean times like these and back to the important work of making our community a better place.

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-358-5686 or jhinkley@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley.