As I write this column, the Leader Publications newsroom is empty.

This is not because we have cut staff, or because a flu bug wiped out our team. Rather, it’s because our staffers are doing what they do best: engaging with the community.

Right now, our Niles reporter is out on assignment, interviewing sources for a story to publish later this week. Our Dowagiac reporter is out in Cass County, uncovering the news. Our photographer is in Buchanan capturing the newest round of scarecrows placed around town. Our managing editor is gathering content for this week, and our sports editor is preparing to cover a sporting event.

You will notice that none of these employees are far from home. We have not shipped a reporter off to the Amazon River to cover the fire. Nobody is working remotely, sending news from afar, and our sports staff is focused on high school athletes based in Berrien and Cass County — not how the Chicago Cubs or Detroit Tigers are faring.

This is because our team is committed to publishing hyperlocal community journalism. Our small (but mighty) staff knows that when it comes to national news, we cannot compete — so we put our efforts in what we can do best and how we can best serve our readers: right here on the front lines.

For many years, we have published political cartoons responding to national politics on our opinion pages, fulfilling a tradition that has long been an integral part of newspapers. The more we thought about it, though, the more we wondered if these cartoons fill our mission: to focus almost entirely on local news, directly impacting the readers of southwest Michigan.

Beginning next month, you will see far fewer political cartoons and many more local opinions, as our news team rolls out some standing features meant to capture the viewpoints of the people right here in Niles, Dowagiac, Cassopolis, Edwardsburg and Buchanan.

We will share opinions from folks we see on the streets, out in the community, on social media and even in the classroom.

You might see polls on our Facebook pages, asking you to weigh in on a certain issue. The responses to those polls will then be shared in our newspapers so that readers may see how their neighbors respond to various issues.

You might be approached by a reporter on the sidewalk, asking your thoughts on last night’s city council meeting. With your permission, your responses may appear on our opinion page.

And with parental permission, you might see your little ones’ responses to silly questions, like “how do you bake a turkey?” just before Thanksgiving, or “what are you most looking forward to this school year?”

As always, we encourage readers to respond to local issues and content published in our newspapers via letters to the editor, which we carefully review and publish.

Ultimately, our goal is to get more local voices in the paper, and to stay true to our mission of focusing on issues directly impacting southwest Michigan. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say!