I ask this not as a criticism, but as a way of gathering insight:
What contributed to the demise of the local paper?
Did the overall substance in the writing and reporting of things that were newsworthy diminish and that lead to less readership, to less subscriptions, to decreased revenue, etc?
Was the transition from paper to online the beginning of the end?
Do people today just have less time or the inability to sit and read (as one of the readers mentioned) a whole paper vs getting a quick summary on the 10pm news or an article online?
Have people in recent years become disenfranchised that even when they react to news (challenge leadership, question use of public funds, attend planning meetings, etc), they feel like they really have no stake in the end result or that their opinions don't matter?
Whatever the cause(s) are, its still a very sad situation.
"Do people today just have less time or the inability to sit and read "
You have got to be kidding. People are sitting in front of Computers for countless HOURS a day.
On December 29, 2019 the Martinez News-Gazette ceased publications after 161 years. It is too early to say what the impact will be for our community of 40,000 to be without the checks and balances on local government the Gazette provided.
We're facing serious challenges in the new year, from deciding whether to site a dispensary 3 blocks from our only high school, to redrawing voting district boundaries (thanks CVRA), critical decisions will be made outside of the watchful eyes of journalists.
We can't rely on the once vibrant coverage our regional paper, Contra Costa Times, provided after DFM gutted newsrooms across the country. Instead the rumor mill and social media will fill the void and those hoping to take advantage of these, will.
“Newspapers are the only means, in a democracy, of persuading a great number of citizens simultaneously that, to protect their private interests, they have to join with others in the public interest.” Alexis de Tocqueville
This is an alarming trend.
Wasn't this article written 15 years ago?
1
I have subscribed to local newspapers on and off over the years--some in paper format and some online. A few years ago, our delivery service was poor, and I did not renew my subscription. In the past few months, our delivery service got worse, again. On several occasions the newspaper landed underneath my car, and if I could not (by lying on my stomach) push/pull it out, using a broomstick, I had to move my car to retrieve the paper. After I made multiple complaints, the newspaper now lands at the foot of my steps, not "on the porch" as I had requested. I'm afraid that even after I notify Circulation that I will be on vacation, the delivery person will continue to deliver my paper, leaving my house an attractive target for burglars.
1
A reporter from the Denver Post emailed to me that he didn't have the resources to investigate government corruption in the City of Steamboat Springs Colorado, a 3 + hour drive. The local news outlet won't investigate because of its prior misrepresentations about local issues plus its dependence on city and realtor advertising and sale of its real estate to the local government. The governor of Colorado says in his website that he can't do anything about complaints regarding local government corruption and "home rule." Bottom line -- Colorado is not a safe place to live if you value your money, your reputation, and your freedom.
Sometimes I stop subscribing to the newspaper when delivery gets bad. At my age, I don't like squatting or lying on the ground with my broom, trying to grab the newspaper that has landed underneath my car. I don't like having to start my car engine to move my car a few feet, to retrieve my paper. Fortunately, I can read a lot online now, but I do like to get paper copies.
1
I finally had to drop my paper subscription to the Knoxville News Sentinel when the cost soared to $53/month for home delivery. By then it was a poor excuse for a newspaper with declining local and regional news coverage. I maintain an on-line subscription, though find the stories of little utility and generally lean on details. I subscribe to the Sunday NY Times with on-line access to daily issues and to the on-line Washington Post. At least with these I get great national news and a variety of perspectives. But without dedicated local reporters, the issues affecting my area's economy and quality of life go unreported. I suspect that local governments, the Oak Ridge Office of the Department of Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority, and other major employers prefer it that way; now they control the information presented to the public.
2
This entire article and every comment can be summed up with one phrase - ok, boomer.
It’s hard to fathom people in 2019 saying they have access to less information today than they did 30 years ago. These people likely just don’t know how to access the information. And if this information were so vital then surely someone would find a way to make it see the light of day. Clearly not every one thinks this information is as important as those who are complaining about its absence.
2
@MC I imagine a lot of boomers and others shaking their heads and laughing at your exposing your relative inexperience and fledgling critical thinking... Anyone who thinks the information provided online and through social media is all they need is self-brainwashing. "...if this information were so vital and surely someone would find a way to make it see the light of day..." OK Gen - whatever...
2
@MC
It sounds like you live in a larger community. In more rural areas, internet access is more erratic and not as reliable. So, searching for news online may not be the answer.
Print newspapers are the only source of news in theses areas, especially if the community lacks a local TV or radio station.
1
@MC Your shallow comment proves the point the article makes.
3
I worked in the circulation department of a small Pulitzer Prize winning daily paper (1963 to 1979). I saw the demographics changing. I started my own printing business and, nearing 21 years saw the printing business changing due to computers, the internet, and various electronics.
Small merchants in most smaller towns need newspapers as a good way to advertise but their advertisements reach fewer and fewer potential customers when newspaper circulation figures decline. The internet, television, and other electronic media gets much more attention than newspapers, and more quickly too. Aren't we using the internet to post and read these messages right now?
3
I worked as the part-time editor for a 30-issue- a-year paper for an island community of 700 with a heavy seasonal population. I moved on to full employment in another industry but the paper is still being published. Before I was hired, the paper was purchased by 25 or so families who invested to keep it running. They knew all profits would be returned to the paper or the community. The staff of three —editor, ad manager and office manager— were all part-time. Content was contributed largely by the community. The paper got its revenue from advertising, subscriptions and copy/printing services it offered. We eventually had some money in the budget to pay a reporter to cover town board meetings and school board meetings. It’s a different funding mechanism and most of the people involved do it at least partly as a labor of love. We also received help from the International Association of Weekly Newspaper Editors. They provided half of the pay for a summer college intern and that was a shot in the arm during our busy season.
The community didn’t realize it needed a newspaper until big issues arose and began to be covered— water quality, for one.
Information and an informed electorate is a public benefit. We need new funding models. What can newspapers learn from the BBC and PBS?
13
The hard reality is that is many small town newspapers in either digital or print form are not financially viable. If local citizens aren't willing to financially support a newspaper either in print or digital form then they really can't complain about their demise. The fact is many rural areas have declining populations and may not have local businesses willing to advertise in these newspapers.
People at the local level have to decide if they want a local newspaper and if that newspaper should be run as a profitable business or as a community service?
If people really want a local newspaper then band together and work toward that goal.
5
I read the NYTs online everyday. Have for years. Was one of the first to sign up for the paid service. I felt quilt reading online for free for so many years. I started reading the NYTs on a daily basis in 1973. Read the Sun Sentinel online for local news. I have an iPhone 11s max. Read them kn that. At home I use my Microsoft Surface. The times they are a changing. Paper newspapers are a dying thing. Have been for a long time. People need to pay for online service. Its not different than putting cash in an envelope that you left for the paperboy every week. Join. It it will help keep quality in our journalism. It is so important. Locally and nationally.
4
Closing the Stanstead Journal, founded in 1845, last summer was an easy decision. As much as people lament the closing of newspapers, how sad it is not to have one, they never rush to subscribe. This the reality that publishers face and not one is going to lose money forever. I surely did not.
3
Fortunate are we who still have our community papers. The Webster-Kirkwood Times focuses largely on local news, but doesn't shy away from the impact of the larger world by posting editorials, articles and letters about timely concerns such as the climate crisis.
It's a free paper delivered to all residents, depending upon advertising and contributions for revenue. Thank you for the reminder to send a check to support our vital local news source.
2
I just submitted a comment on another NYT article today about which candidates for stories get to go on Page 1. I asked about those stories that don't even get considered because they're being missed.
I'd say the entry you picked up here about a publisher who gets Awards but pays the bills by cleaning bathrooms in the office building might merit Page 1 territory.
Beyond even that, I see movie potential. Who would play the publisher in the film?
More seriously, good that you looked for a story that could easily have been missed. Could have used a section on why these local papers are in so much trouble, and, whether any have found ways to thrive.
2
There is a similar problem involving overconsolidation of local newspapers into a single holding group. For example all the small town newspapers in the Bay Area have been consolidated into Community Newspapers, Inc. and is owned by a larger newsgroup holding company with a large part it controlled by Wall Street interests. Most small communities can't be covered by a single regional office.
2
In the late nineties I learned that only 4 of the country's 25 largest metropolitan areas had competing daily papers. I lived in Boston at the time, and although I didn't read the Herald I was glad to have a second major viewpoint.
1
@Joe
"although I didn't read the Herald " Exactly
Another result of the obsolescence of monolithic news outlets is that seasoned journalists have left for other pursuits. Now people can get their news from multiple outlets online.
The old standards seem to be more populated by partisan youngsters fresh off the college newspaper spewing that kind of 'wisdom' spending down the credibility of hallowed publications, like the LA Times, like WAPO, like ABC, CBS, etc. and yes, even the NY Times. That 'fake news' inarticulate baboon talks about.
2
Too bad you removed the Birmingham News entry. It was eviscerated by Newhouse's "Advance" Media on the same day that the New Orleans Times-Picayune was gutted. It publishes three days a week, but it's mostly gone, and Birminghamians just roll their eyes at the cremains of it. Here in Athens, Georgia, the Athens Banner-Herald publishes six days a week, but it has so little content in it that it has fewer than 7,000 subscribers in a college town of over 100,000. Democracy does indeed die in darkness.
10
This is the inevitable result of newspapers abandoning local and state news while chasing national issues. There is plenty of local news. When was the last time you saw a report on a meeting of the local school board? How about your local city council or related boards?
When real estate and car adverts went to the internet, papers responded by laying off staff. I wish they sought out local news to fill the pages.
3
Let me put this out there (just so it's off of my chest): If local newspapers are really that vital (to most people), then it should be a town resource. Why not let the town own the local newspaper?
Ok, I know everyone's going to laugh at the idea, particularly since most small(er) towns can afford to keep their newspapers. But I truly believe that the town can come together to contribute to the newspaper, maybe take on a few interns (maybe unpaid - sorry) on a rotation basis to help out. Don't laugh just yet, it could work...
2
I worry about what is happening to our small communities because we used to get all kinds of news and now, we don't. Now, no one knows what the elected officials are doing with our tax money, or who they are hiring, or if the people in charge of local governments are doing what they were elected to do. There are no watch dogs keeping an eye on these people and heaven knows, they aren't all on the up and up.
6
I live in Minneapolis. Here we have the StarTribune. It used to be a decent paper but is now well on its way to being a hollowed-out "ghost paper". When I pick up the print version I cannot believe how incredibly thin it is. You can read the entire paper very, very quickly. My neighborhood has a free paper that comes out bi-weekly, the Southwest Journal. Frankly I get a great deal of my local news from that. This is what updates me on what is going on nearby, if crime is going up or down near to me, what developers are trying to build in the nearby vicinity, when the huge freeway project might be done and where the bypasses are, profiles on all the city council candidates, etc. I have had problems reading the limited "free" articles on the Strib website so I read elsewhere. I get weather and such from my phone or tv news. Mostly I read EVERYTHING. Publications from conservative to liberal, I like to read a wide range of view points. The StarTribune is on its way out, very sad.
1
@Susie "I have had problems reading the limited "free" articles on the Strib website so I read elsewhere."
There is the problem in a nutshell. You can't lament decline in the quality or quantity of local newspapers while at the same time only using the free digital version of them. Put your money where you mouth is if you really want quality local news.
1
My local, daily newspaper was never great, but until about a dozen years ago you could rely on it to cover the basics. But then it was sold to one media group, then sold again, then that media group merged with another, and now it’s controlled by a hedge fund. And it’s useless. Not even worth printing. In order to find out what’s going on in my community I have to cobble together information from tv news, the university’s student newspaper, the town’s free newspaper that skews left of left, the snippets of Twitter exchanges that I can access (I don’t have a Twitter account, and a couple free newsletters. I know more about what is going on in NYC than I do about my own area. It’s very frustrating.
2
Perhaps we need to return to newsletters, simpler layouts and easier print publications rather than give up completely. Online publications never seem to be as good or have the same standards. They are much harder to read. Here's another question, if Amazon is taking up so much shopping, why aren't they advertising in local publications?
2
It's like going back into the dark ages.
1
It's telling and ironic that a story about the demise of newspapers is being distributed, read and commented on digitally. Barb Krause in Pittsburgh is right: The time is nigh that print publications will cease entirely. I visited a friend recently in an Upper East Side tenement and the sight of several copies of the Times on the ground floor was so unusual, it made me stop in my tracks.
4
@HKGuy The New York Times, at the top of the pyramid, will somehow survive changes that other reporting outlets won't survive.
For many years that I lived in Queens, I took the local paper, like the Forest Hills Times. I have vivid memories of reading it and learning of civic groups literally around the corner from me.
What next? I now live in a fast-growing city in Texas with a dying but prominent local paper. I don't have time to read it (witness the stack of 2 months unopened), much less convince my kids to look (they dislike even magazines.)
My local-local news comes from the unpaid neighbors newsletter, our councilwoman's emails, chatter on the Yahoo list (now closed!) and a vigorous speakers' forum after church. And that relies much on personalities from the local paper.
1
Like others here, I regret the demise of small town local news. All of which has been replaced by online news sources and the large conglomerate publications. Not just the larger publications, but the rise of ad-heavy (and usually obtrusive) online editions has led to many papers simply folding (no pun intended) and giving up. Many is small communities could benefit from their local papers if they were not so dependent upon subscriptions and ad revenue. But the sustainability of such small town newspapers is increasingly difficult given the fact that people simply want content without having to deal with ads splashed all over what they are trying to read.
6
There is no future in the paper business by selling traditional subscriptions to a print vehicle, display ads and inserts. Fortunately, NYT has a good online subscription model. But most people are getting news and info almost solely from their cell phones. No really way to make money from that in small town America. I’ve spent more than 40 years in the ad, news and paper business. Niche publications can still do well. But the days of the hometown daily or weekly are just about gone.
9
It used to be that you HAD to buy a newspaper if you wanted to see prices for new and used cars, homes and everything else for sale, listings of restaurants, movies, church services, etc. When all of that information became immediately accessible on the Web, it devastated local papers; subscription revenue is minimal compared to ad sales.
I'm a journalist who reluctantly made the decision to retire early when I was being offered 1988 rates for articles. Everyone wants copy but no one can pay for it. A handful of online behemoths control 80%+ of ad sales.
It's very depressing, but history is a series of dramatic transformations. This one is still very much in a state of becoming. I'm hopeful something will emerge to take the place of the functions of daily papers, something that no can imagine yet.
19
People either never realized, or ignored, the fact that advertising, not subscriptions, paid the bills at all successful newspapers. Once classified advertising and consistent display ads disappeared when those that placed them went elsewhere, the best news staff in the world couldn't attract enough paid readers to keep the doors open. Going online, even with paywalls, doesn't solve the problem either. You can google any truly newsworthy event at other "free" pages.
So what's the answer? Good journalism requires good journalists to be present to witness the events and to write about them and that requires enough $$ to pay them. I pay for, and read, 4 papers - the LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal and am grateful for the discounted prices that allow me to do so. At full prices, I doubt I'd hold on to all 4 - but if I'm a representative reader, how long can these publications continue without raising prices too high to retain us?
10
@Eric T Well at least the Journal will partially cancel out the propaganda of these other newspapers.
3
@Eric T, Agree. I have 8 subscriptions on monthly and annual basis, among others, NYT, LAT, Bloomberg News, The Atlantic, WaPo, New Yorker. Do I need that many subscriptions? Maybe not. I read most of the same articles in news aggregators online, like google news. (I read at least 5 newspapers everyday, including international publications.) But I do make a point that I want to support the media that I truly believe in, because in-depth reporting takes time and money. (This is also the reason I'm both a monthly contributor, as well as contributing multiple times a year during fund drives, to NPR.)
I'm not saying this to gloat, I'm saying this because there is no free lunch in this world. If we don't pay for it, the good things will disappear. It's the same rationale I make a point to shop locally, even though it's more convenient to shop online and have goods delivered to my doorstep.
And I've emphasis these to my children. If you do not shop (and support) your local community and neighborhood, those will disappear too. Do we really want convenience at home when all the nearby storefronts are boarded up? Do we want to get news only from twitter and facebook? Do we want "news" only from those who scream the loudest? If your answer is no, no, and no, then it's time to support your local newspapers too before they disappear for good.
5
@Eric T , I am a disabled person on limited income. Because I can no longer work I spend a lot of time reading, and reading all kinds of online publications. Until just recently I could not afford subscriptions. However I was just able to get one to the NYT and WaPo. If I had a higher income I would not hesitate to invest in some of these and support more (although getting them on sale is always nice!). I believe if you want something to stay, you need to do your best to support it.
4
One of the major factors in the disappearance of local newspapers and the hollowing out of those that remain was the wrongheaded decision at the dawn of the search engine age to make stories available online for free. Google and all the other assorted aggregators (news parasites) ought not be allowed to make money off the hard work of often underpaid reporters.
At the same time, community newspapers need to earn the support of their readers by providing a quality product and making it indispensable to the life of the community. No easy task.
10
@Nelson We have several excellent local papers in the Portland ME area. Of course the only ones reading these are older people. If us older people were tech savvy we could get all our news on a phone. The younger generation must be better informed because they appear to be reading the news all the time. I see them everywhere. Sometimes I see them typing on their virtual keyboards . I assume they are making comments on the news.
1
@Nelson, Hindsight is 20/20. Most everyone back then didn't have the tech knowhow to put their news up on the web. Their wish to reach a wider audience resulted in the deal with the devil (google) to let it aggregate using their contents (news), for free.
What the print media didn't realize is that, they have the power, they have the content, they should have dictated the terms. But, they blinked.
Look at what happens with movie streaming. Netflix started out with tech prowess. Movie studios and content owners felt like they had to deal with netflix in order to reach audience. No longer. Whoever owns the contents, is king. Netflix (and amazon) is only coming to realize that now.
The difference is, you can copyright on the write-up of a piece of "news", but anyone can write about the same "news" in 150-word tweets. The other difference is, audience these days is so dumbed down, forever accustomed to reading news in bite-sized chunks. I'd argue that it's the long-form investigative journalistic pieces (those that are Pulitzer Prize worthy) that define a media outlet. And only those audience who appreciate such in-depth reporting would be willing to pay. The rest of the mass? They are just freeloaders, period.
3
Our Local Paper, The Augusta Chronicle, is owned by Gate House. It is full of automobile advertisements and some furniture store advertisements. The local "news" consists of conservative pundits and the editorial page with obits and church info (on Saturday). The thing that is most interesting is that this "content" is behind a paywall. 5 articles/week or $9.95/month. I always compare the number of articles (original not syndicated) compared to the NYT and laugh to myself. NYT is a great bargain.
4
@Ron from Georgia
It's not GateHouse anymore, it's Gannett. But that's a minor point. Oh, how the world might be different if McClatchy, which I think has its heart in the right place and does its level best, hadn't borrowed north of $1 billion at precisely the wrong time to acquire Knight Ridder. Bankruptcy/default, now, is inevitable, and when that happens, a whole lot of towns that already complain are going to find out how much worse it can be. Absent the KR deal, McClatchy, now, might be a financially healthy company, because it had no prior debt. Maybe it could have scooped up some bargains in your town and others and kept journalism alive. Now, it's all but dead, and not even Gannett can afford to buy anything anymore.
2
J. Montgomery Curtis was the editor of the Buffalo Evening News. I met him when I was starting out as a reporter, and he told me, "A town is only as good as its newspaper. If you have a lazy newspaper, you have a corrupt town. If you have an aggressive paper, local officials know you are watching and try to do the right thing." I'm sure Monty is rolling in his grave, knowing many towns have no newspapers at all.
15
Unfortunately bringing attention to this issue is just the first step towards solving it. I’m surprised these local outlets have not gone to web based platforms. It’s a frustrating problem but there’s no turning back the clock.
1
@Joseph Rodriguez, Mostly it's the old folks who still read physical papers, they are not the ones to get news on the web. The younger generations? Some younger ones don't even have to ever read any physical papers at all. They won't go to the web to find local news, they go there for entertainment. And so, if you think "local papers going to the web" is going to the panacea, you're quite mistaken.
4
@Joseph Rodriguez I was the managing editor of a small daily newspaper in my town before I was let go after 31 years of service. I can tell you that web-based platforms are not going to save local journalism. It won't pay the bills. One other thing: I have yet to read a national summation of the issue that fully states how dire the situation is. I don't think there's any doubt that nearly all local journalism is about to disappear. It's not surprising that the public doesn't understand this because local journalism owners won't allow their staffs to tell the story of their decline. But the national writers should know this and be able to say it straight out.
1
I am an avid reader of local newspapers. That also means I pay for them. I am 67. This article, and the companion piece on local reporters losing their jobs, neglects to emphasize that the reason local newspapers close is that younger people no longer subscribe or read them. Thus local businesses see little need to buy the ads that, along with the cover price, support newspapers. Why not mention that? Why not also include some interviews with those non-readers as to why they are not concerned enough with local events to buy the local paper? Is facebook really that interesting? Is Angry Birds (or what app is now popular) really a substitute for participating in your community?
16
They can find a lot of the information carried in newspapers online. That doesn't mean, of course, that they're getting the same valuable stream of local news that comes out of a newspaper, of course.
1
Thanks for this thought-provoking coverage about shifts in local journalism. I’m not sure how much any one household can or should do to try to address, but I’ve taken one small step.
When a story relating the efforts of the Malheur Enterprise to hold local officials accountable came through my not-very-active Twitter feed, it caught my eye. Malheur County is home to about 32000 people across a wide geographic area in eastern Oregon. My father was born in its county seat, Vale, in 1911. In the 1970’s, Dad had a print version of the Enterprise delivered to our California home, and we shared some chuckles about police blotter and other local stories. Out of sentimentality, a vague desire to support local news, and respect that Enterprise work had earned the attention of reporters I respect on Twitter, I purchased my own online subscription a few months back.
Rather to my surprise, I have not only enjoyed but have been enriched by my resulting access to the Malheur Enterprise. A profile on homeless people outside Ontario, OR and a story of journalism exchange students from USC were two memorable examples of work that reminded me the rural/ urban divide is not as great as we may sometimes imagine.
My husband and I are loyal subscribers to the NYT as well, of course!
17
Technology has interwoven and inter-leaven nodes of interconnectivity into a forest of data. Local Newspapers are those individual trees whose bytes are toggled off into silent whispers.
Echos of those fallen voices, a rustle of fallen leaves litter the landscape with moments of mundane and minutiae. A coda to community and connectivity.
3
Let's review where small town weeklies got revenue to operate:
*A 1- or 2-page ad by the local supermarket.
*Similar by the local department store.
*Regular advertising by local appliance stores.
*Ditto by local garages.
*An ad for the local movie theater.
The first four have been replaced by Walmart, which long ago adopted direct mail over newspaper ads.
For the fifth, theaters now announce what's playing via the Web.
Yes, the Internet has conditioned readers to obtain news for no or low cost. But diminished sources of local ad revenue have created an obstacle for young journalists who otherwise might step in to restore a local weekly to a community.
8
On our town, we have several Facebook groups where people report on happenings in our town. We even have a Facebook group for our street. I know more about my town from reading these than I ever learned reading local newspapers, with our town news written by a single recent journalism grad. We also have services like Patch and TapInto. The amount of local news and hyper local news available now is staggering. The old system was dependent on the biases of a single editor, reporter and publisher. Now online, I hear many voices. We still get a weekly free newspaper, but I mourn the waste as it quickly goes into recycling. So many carbon-absorbing trees are cut because there’s still money in habituating the old ways.
@Rick
Well, biases. The editor went to journalism school, and learned a lot about how things are done, and about being fair in their coverage.
Now, you've got a lot more voices—but they include people and sites like Alex Jones, Breitbart, Fox, and anyone who wants to post anonymously ("Rick") on the internet. With no training, no attempt to be fair, or unbiased, or present facts without inserting their own opinions.
20
@Rick There's a great difference between neighbors posting happenings and the relentless watching and digging by a well-trained reporter edited by an experienced editor. With both you'll get what happened. Only with the latter will you learn about what project your local selectman did *not* back, or which officer is being disciplined, what curriculum might be changed, what corporation could rezone your park. In short, news is also about what hasn't happened yet and the meaning of what did occur. Rare are the neighbors with the time and tenaciousness to dig out that vital information. If you don't get that coverage, push harder for the remaining news companies to pay attention to your area.
4
@Rick
Facebook is a cesspool for rumor mongering. Sorry, but to compare FB and the other outlets you mention to a bona fide newspaper where stories are vetted, at least to some degree, for accuracy and relevance is an inept comparison.
3
I have spent my whole 83 years complaining about my newspaper, but thank goodness it is still there and publishing every day in print. And always owned by big guys, Cox, Scripps, Gannett and I guess now, Gateway. As a child I used to wait every night for the Syracuse paper to come. In the winter he even delivered in a Model A with tracks on the back drive wheels and skis on the front wheels. We didn’t have to wait for the snow plow. I moved to West Palm Beach in 1980 and the Evening Times was waiting on my boat when I got home. Now the Stuart news comes each morning along with the WSJ (the Times in print is too expensive). And for those who like a printed book, I feel the same way about newspapers.
5
As bad - or worse - are the cities now served by Gannett. They may think they still have a local newspaper - but they do not, Feature stories rule - no deep local news.
5
Spectrum (heir to Time Warner cable here in New York) may be an awful cable company (overpriced and technologically backward) but its Channel 1 News is a journalistic jewel when it comes to covering events, particularly local news. News coverage is moreover supplemented with informative interviews (the mayor is a regular) and round table discussions with journalists still covering local politics. Its personnel department has a real nose for talent as well. The selection of the mostly young men and women for its news staff actually seems ruled by considerations of talent even though the station obviously goes out of its way to provide jobs to candidates drawn from the wide spectrum of racial and ethnic groups in the metropolitan area. When electronic news is this good, few New Yorkers will mourn the demise of the local newspaper.
2
@Vincent Amato Yes, and watch as the migration from cable in turn devastates these news services underwritten by the soon-to-be-anachronistic cable providers.
3
I miss the --- Star, the Southtown Economist and the Chicago Defender.
I miss the old Chicago Sun Times and Chicago Tribune.
I miss the ink, the paper, the comics, the sales papers and most of all the banter with the newspaper seller at the local newsstand that you had to seek out to get the latest edition in the elements.
A wise elderly blind black man with a service dog mutt who always trusted you to give him the right dollar bill amount in return for the correct change. And who knew the local 'news' better than you. Because he heard everything through the neighborhood grapevine. Just like my barber.
11
Considering the massive increase in information sharing and exchange via the WWW this article rings hollow. OK boomer...
@AS
Considering the massive increase in disinformation, lies and manipulation that social media perpetuate and that have the Millennial generation the easiest demographic in America to scam and defraud, all I can say is:
O.K. snowflake.
1
This very paper, The New York Times, used to have a separate "Metropolitan News" section, which it no longer carries. The wide depth of coverage which I remember from decades ago is no longer present here.
Now I read various websites—Gothamist, Brooklyn Heights Blog, Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn Eagle, Curbed, Brownstoner, etc.—to get local news.
I myself used to write/edit/publish news, physical newsletters and a magazine. The internet made them obsolete. A physical publication—dependent on advertising revenue and paid subscribers, plus retail sales; printers; the post office—can't compete with the immediacy of news coming over the internet.
But at the same time, income that paid for newspapers also paid for journalists, city beats and editors, all the things we're now losing.
I subscribe to the Times on-line, and still value it. But I remember when it took all day to read the Sunday edition. Now I zip through in maybe an hour.
18
So true. It only did the Metro section disappear so did my beloved Automobile section. So sad!
7
@Andrew Porter NYT may be the best newspaper in the US, and possibly the world, but its heavy migration online has only reinforced it as a national and international newspaper. There have been times when I have heard from friends or on social media about a major local news story, and it takes a day or even two for the Times to get around covering it. The "New York" section is all soft features. I can figure out what to do this weekend or where to eat in Maspeth on my own. I'd rather see stories about what's happening than all those features about local personalities.
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@Andrew Porter
The New York Times “sponsor a subscription” program allows individuals to make a contribution that provides Times digital subscriptions to students and schools across the U.S. For every subscription granted through contributions to the program, The Times provides a matching subscription to each additional student.
The NY Times matches the sponsored subscriptions with its own. 1.6 million are covered by sponsors—one donated a million dollars—and 1.6 million are covered by the NY Times.
Total 2.6 million “subscribers.”
These subscriptions are gifts not subscriptions.
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Solution: place a local news tax on all social media ad dollars. Use that money to shore up local journalism.
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@Eli
That's socialism!
:)
I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. Whenever I am back home and can read the print edition (the digital edition has a paywall), I am reminded how truly horrible that newspaper is. I have searched articles from decades before, and it wasn't much better. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
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People pour into urban areas and follow only national news or entertainment. They know nothing of their city, nothing of governance or neighborhood issues, local laws, nothing of long-time residents and long-time institutions they are helping to push out through skyrocketing rents. Regional flavor is becoming homogenized into "stuff rich people like." All the same. All useless for everyday living. No diversity. No middle class--just the very rich and the very poor. The Oregonian was founded in 1850. For the last ten years, it has been stripped down to nothing. In the end, what do we care about? Fashion? Cuisine? Or livable cities and each other? When will we learn to take less and value things that are not about pure profit or our own convenience? When will greed become unfashionable at long last? When will America grow up?
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If local newspapers reorganized themselves as 501C3 organizations, there are many who would make donations,
financial and in kind, to cover operating deficits. This might not
solve all related problems because an interest in reading hard printed newspapers may never be acquired by a high enough percentage of younger people. Nevertheless, it may be worth the effort to try this. It might help to save our democracy.
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@Lionel Many, in fact, have converted to non-profit status. So far, the public response to donations has mostly been met with silence. One notable exception is the Guardian in the UK.
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I love the vignettes from readers, but they should probably be fact-checked. The Birmingham News has not ceased publication. It publishes print editions every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, with digital editions available online other days of the week.
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Even my old Buffalo News, owned by the Oracle of Omaha, fills its space with Bill's stuff, reruns of old topics and photo ops but little news. They ignore the impeachment of the President afraid to offend supporters of Trump.
The paper of my upbringing, the Staten Island Advance, just appeals to the South Shore, civil servants and is reluctant to cover any negative press about Trump, afraid to offend older readers.
My current newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune, is now a non profit. A shadow of its former self.
People do not want to pay for news. They only want news feeds on their devices they agree with.
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People got tired of paying for “news” that often times was an opinion piece with liberal commentary masquerading as a news article. Many papers killed themselves with this format and by not having any sort of balanced opinion
Unfortunately, the Social Media giants, like Facebook and Google do not care. They are destroying the sense of community. They should be using some of their profits to bolster these small community newspapers. Instead, they are the major cause of the rapid demise of the social structure of "small town" America.
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@bsb--We let them do this. Only we can unravel it, by changing our habits and taking back the power of the consumer, and the voter.
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The news business is changing as I'm sure all who read the NYT are aware. Many organizations will not be able to adapt and will die. Others, smaller, more nimble, probably on line only, will sprout up in their place. It is going to take some time for all of this to shake out, but we are a social animal, we love to gossip, and are endlessly nosy. News, which is a formalized version of gossip, will not die. It may look very different, but it will not die.
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The news medium will die because people refuse to read newspapers when it is too easy to just accept the hokum dished out by television on stories that don’t require thinking. It is so important to ponder the happenings that we may not agree with but may help us get a better understanding of another point of view. The news sources on television are meant to entertain us. Think how many times someone will ask what’s happening and unless it’s entertaining or shocking , the reply is uneventful....that is why we now have this”entertainer “ in the White House instead of a president.
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Provincetown Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, is perhaps one of the few places in the U.S. where we have a new local full print and online start up, The Provincetown Independent. The venerable Advocate served the community for generations but went out of business after The Provincetown Banner was created. The Banner was bought out by a corporate conglomerate and while it has some excellent columns and cartoonist, it’s news staff has suffered multiple corporate cuts. At times, a full section is devoted to real estate ads.
It’s a great relief to have a true local grassroots independent paper spring up again. I’ve let my subscription to the corporate owned Banner expire. I now subscribe to the Provincetown Independent.
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@Stephan The Times did a disservice to the Berkshire Eagle by printing a picture of the Eagle with this story. The Eagle (which I read on occasional visits to western Mass) has been bought by local people who are putting money into it, much as John Henry has done with the Boston Globe and Jeff Bezos with the Washington Post. Like the Ptown Independent, the Berkshire Eagle is now once again doing a great service to the community.
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This is such a sad state for our country. A democracy requires educated voters who are informed about government actions at all levels. The U.S. cannot sustain our democracy if its citizens are not informed about their government.
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@June -- Boy, you hit that nail right on its head! Thanks!
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Hi, June ~
I fully agree with you here.
However, a democracy also requires educated voters who are informed about the actions of privately owned multinational corporations, because it's within their private boardrooms that the real economic—hence, political—power is put into play (i.e., put into governance, both locally and nationally) here in the U.S.
Indeed, the U.S. cannot sustain a properly functioning democracy when its citizens are not informed about the privately owned multinational corporations that ever more deeply influence (and too often largely outright run) their local and national governments.
But it's when these same citizens see privately owned multinational corporations running our nation's presses, but still call these "our free press" that we all start to get into extremely serious trouble—because this demonstrates how deeply indoctrinated we've become, courtesy of these same privately owned multinational corporate news presses.
The New York Times is in fact a very powerful privately owned multinational corporation serving (for its existence) even more powerful multinational corporations. And this fact must always be kept in mind here—because this fact does not (and cannot) allow for a properly functioning democracy.
And this decline of local news and the resulting "Our community does not know itself" is a function of these privately owned corporate presses working (and advertising themselves) as "our free press."
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Our local paper, the Vancouver Columbian, is still doing a terrific job, but it just stopped publishing a print edition on Mondays. Not a good sign.
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The greatest cultural importance of newspapers printed on non-selfdestructing paper is the preservation and traceability of the news. Local news is something that depends on the size of the "local". There is New York, N.Y., and Oslo, Minn., pop. 75.
I can feel all commenting here. I founded a small town weekly and was actually making a fairly good living when all of a sudden the local police chief arrested and put into jail a guy who wrote a letter to the editor in my paper.
The letter was mildly critical of the chief as the chief wouldn't allow him to sell snow chains near the entrance of the local ski resort. The chief based his arrest on a 1886 state Blue Law that basically said that if someone writes a letter to the editor and someone doesn't like it they can be thrown into jail.
The folks in town (population 934) began shying away from the paper and eventually I sold it (luckily) and moved back to the big city.
Years later I moved back and successfully published an online daily. A daily, but it was a piece of cake (and no ink) compared to a print paper. I retired and to this day I am glad the police chief did what he did as he spared me from a sad ending.
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I believe that among the issues of not having real local news, the lack of a 'check' on local government is the worst, since a significant amount of funding is channeled through counties and at local levels. The quality of remaining publications (many hollowed-out) is quite poor, as others have noted, and also based on my experience in New Jersey.
This is a great article covering a very important issue that doesn't have apparent solutions at the local or state levels, and may need broader government intervention/ support. It's a 'non-partisan' issue in terms of identification of the issue, since 'checks' on government come from the opposing viewpoint, whatever that may be.
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I've always lived in small- to medium-sized communities, and subscribed to local papers. Their disappearance makes me sad, and fills me with foreboding about the lack of coverage of local issues and communities, but what exactly can anyone do?
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Why ? The media business depends on advertising, and advertising is now focused on the internet, so goodbye local newspapers, and maybe giant newspapers. A real problem. An innovator is needed to come up with a solution. I assume the problem is that people (we) are not willing to pay what it costs to staff a local newspaper, so such papers rely on advertising, no longer an option. Would volunteer reporters and journalists be the solution ? Many things are done by volunteers but, in my experience, not continually reliably. Tasks that require daily mundane action are not volunteers' specialty, and when a key volunteer, the shaker and mover, departs the activity often demises. What about taxes ? No good, a free press is essential to oversee the government, especially local ones. Just musing.
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As a media investor, Ive studied the future of newspapers on and off since 2004, and I know of no solutions other than possibly charging more for online access to news. NYT WSJ and a few others have gone this route, but I’m afraid that most publications lack the large and wealthy audience necessary to provide sufficient revenue through reader fees.
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I know this is about local coverage but I am going to say we are in a golden age of international and national coverage. I subscribe (digitally) to the NY Times, the WSJ, at times the WaPo and the LA Times, The Atlantic and Bloomberg. Probably going to renew the WaPost as we get into election coverage. I know they can't cover local news as well as local papers and in my community we have a terrific local paper, The Rye Record which helps with local coverage. Local folks need to keep up by going to City Council meetings, and following websites etc.and starting or subscribing to these papers. But I love the ability to read all these other sources on my commute and in my chair at night, and on the beach etc. etc.
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