Invitation to screening of For The Record on YouTube

Feb 27, 2025

NNAF, Red Owl and Laurie Ezzell Brown present FOR THE RECORD on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT/12 p.m. MT/11 a.m. PT (approximately 30 minutes long). 

Attendees will have to login to YouTube to view. Laurie Ezzell Brown will be available during the livestream to answer messages through the chat box.

In a small Texas Panhandle town, which has survived oil booms and busts, devastating wildfires, and a diminishing population, a few things have remained constant – cowboys, high school football, conservative voters, and the family-owned weekly newspaper The Canadian Record. Despite editor Laurie Brown’s liberal editorials in one of the most conservative counties in the country, The Record is loved and relied on by the community. But now, an already bad economy has been made much worse by the global pandemic – bad news for a paper that gets 90% of its revenue from advertising. FOR THE RECORD follows the life of Laurie, her town, and her newspaper, as she leads a valiant effort to keep it alive. “My parents started this paper in 1947. I don’t want to close the doors. But there have been weeks when I was publishing a newspaper that was costing me more than I was making.” With each day, The Canadian Record grows closer to being one of the 2900 newspapers in the U.S. that have closed since 2005. Studies show that people who live in areas with poor local news coverage are less likely to vote. Social media often replaces the news vacuum, leading to a growing distrust of the news in general. “The fact that journalism is being denounced,” says Laurie, “ and there’s no longer much value being placed on the truth, is just about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

NNA premiered this documentary at its annual convention in Omaha, Nebraska, in fall 2024, and members said that this was the best session they had ever attended.

Please don't miss out on this opportunity to watch with your peers and ask questions of Laurie Ezzell Brown.

Also, feel free to share this registration link to anyone you believe would benefit from witnessing what a small-town newspaper means to its community.

FREE. Click here to register.