Herald Short Film Proves to 'Have Legs;' Shown in 'Mobile' Film Festival

A short film about the Herald made by Cove native Larry Locke and his son Trevor has been chosen as an official selection for a second film festival.

"The Herald" was selected as a finalist for the Mobile Journalism Awards (MOJO), which selected films in the categories of Best Documentary, Crisis Reporting and Mobile Journalism. "The Herald" was selected because it was shot largely with an iPhone by Trevor. A screening of the chosen films was held online on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. Herald Publisher Allan J. Bassler joined the screening remotely, as the event was based in Berlin.

The seven-minute film can be viewed at the URL https://vimeo.com/544621864

The short film about the Herald was released Aug. 10, 2021, and was previously a selection of the DOC NYC documentary film festival. The short film was also a selection of the New Haven Doc Fest and the Rhode Island Film Festival.

A description of the film written by Larry states:

Owner/Publisher Allan Bassler fights to keep The Herald, his 136-year-old community newspaper alive in a world where local journalism all over the country is quickly disappearing. Google, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms have chipped away at his paper's income while at the same time distrust has grown in his readers' minds toward all forms of journalism.

The Mobile Journalism Awards "is an annual global competition run by the Visual Editors Non-Profit to identify, advance and celebrate the best mobile journalism reporting each year," according to the MOJO website. Visual Editors, NFP, is "a public charity that supports visual journalism literacy and student and professional scholarship with educational opportunities and resources."

The Mobile Journalism Awards celebrates films shot with non-traditional cameras such as iPhones and other mobile recording devices.

"Not all of ours was shot with iPhones, but a piece was," Larry said. "It was primarily Trevor's shots. All the exterior, all the Cove, all the buildings and some of the printing [press] shots at the [Altoona] Mirror, all that and a little of the interior of the Herald."

The interview with Bassler and some of the "walking around" shots were shot with a traditional camera, Larry said.

Larry said that the Herald's selection by the DOC NYC documentary film festival was "a really big honor" and the selection by the MOJO festival shows that the short documentary is "a big deal, especially with younger people."

Larry said that the film festival circuit is now "very competitive, even small local film festivals" and the multiple selections of the film shows that it struck a chord.

Larry said that the continuing interest in the documentary has "exceeded my and Trevor's expectations."

"We have scratched our heads many times over the short film's success," Larry said. "We made as a test to see if there was a bigger film. But it is about something, that's why it had legs. It's an important subject, it's a real story, told in a simple way, not fancy, and it fits the subject. That resonated."

"How many more small newspapers will we lose before the country realizes what it is losing?" Larry asked, referring to the question that the documentary raises. "Local journalism is a very important thing to many communities. [But] many communities no longer have a newspaper. Something like 80 percent of journalists are now concentrated in big cities. So other places, like rural America, is covered by 20 percent of the journalists but there's a lot more land area there."

Larry said that having a "common source of trusted information" is important to small communities.

"Public bodies, the authorities, are not always right," Larry said. "Elected officials can be misguided, things can get off track even with the best intentions. And that's what the local newspaper does, it is there to check and say to the public, 'hey, look what's going on here.'

"That's not to say that officials are nefarious, but people can get short-sighted and there can be mistakes made. There needs to be someone there to call this out. That's an important part of the job of a community newspaper," Larry said.

Herald Publisher Bassler agreed.

"People need to let the Herald know if they want a local newspaper," Bassler said. "Communities here have seen the loss of local businesses such as supermarkets. Williamsburg also almost lost its only bank. Across the Cove, dairy farmers are downsizing or selling herds. The paper mill closed and is not going to reopen. Curry Supply moved out of Curryville. Things are changing and a lot of traditional businesses find it harder to stay afloat. The only way the Herald will survive is if people support it by buying subscriptions and ads and reading it, warts and all. It might not be perfect, but do you want it or not - that is the question.

"If you decide to not subscribe because you disagree with one editorial, you're missing the point of a local newspaper," Bassler said. "Smaller communities can thrive but they need to pull together and support local businesses strongly. If not, there's going to be a slow decline. The Cove community could find itself without a newspaper, among other businesses. And trust me, no one is going to come here and start up a reliable community news source like the Herald."