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About Us

Our mission is to:

  • Promote independent editorials, news and leadership in community journalist throughout the world.
  • Assist in the exchange of ideas and viewpoints of community editors and publishers worldwide, so that they and their readers may become better informed.
  • Advocate for ethical principles and practices of community journalism.
  • Champion continued vitality and responsibility of a free press.
  • Promote and support research that improves the practice of community journalism.
  • Develop community journalism as an instrument of mutual understanding and to foster freedom of the press in all nations.

The ISWNE’s purpose is to help those involved in the weekly press to improve standards of editorial writing and news reporting and to encourage strong, independent editorial voices.

ISWNE was founded in 1955 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale by Howard R. Long and Houstoun Waring, editor of the Littleton (Colo.) Independent. The organization has been headquartered at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin since 1999.