The writer is generally not a regular member of the newspaper staff but is a stringer who receives little or no pay for their submissions, outside of a free subscription to the periodical.
It is not uncommon to read reports of new babies, vacations, recently purchased automobiles and church suppers in these pieces.
[1] A majority of the 7,500 weekly newspapers across the United States continue to depend upon these community correspondents for help in reporting local news.
These columns remain some of the most popular sections in them, despite the advent of blogs and other information heavy social media.
Most writers of these columns tend to be older and women, though not universally so, and when they are no longer able to produce regular submissions, editors have found a lack of replacements for a job that receives little compensation.