There are few careers with less job security than local newspaper reporter. Eighteen thousand newspapers have shuttered since 2004, leaving 1,300 communities with no news coverage. In 2017, newspaper reporter was ranked as the worst job in America for the third straight year.
But local newspapers haven’t been closing because they’re unnecessary. In fact, as the public’s trust in the media continues to wane, local newspapers are as necessary as ever.
“People talk about the decline of newspapers. But I think rural papers fill an important role that a lot of people forget about,” said Erin Camp, a reporter at the Grant County Press on West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
Donnie Douglas, editor of the Robesonian in Robeson County, North Carolina, agrees. Douglas said his paper must deal with the same challenges that confront most daily newspapers, including declining revenue and readership.
“But we’re still pretty viable,” he said. “And I’ll say this, if you want to know about what’s happening in Robeson county, you really don’t have anywhere else to go except to the Robesonian newspaper. I say that with a lot of confidence.”
Something important is lost when a local newspaper closes. Without local outlets acting as a watchdog for the community, Margaret Sullivan recently warned in the Washington Post, “corruption can flourish, taxes can rise, public officials can indulge their worst impulses.”
Camille and Craig Howard, who edit and publish the Grant County Press, said they take their job as community watchdog seriously. But they believe keeping the public’s trust also means reporting the news in a way that respects the priorities and sensibilities of their communities.
“There’s a different level of trust here,” Camille said. “So there are some things that we wouldn’t print that a large paper would.”
Camille mentioned a recent deadly car accident as an example. “It was horrific, and a woman passed away, and we had pictures of the truck that landed down the hill,” she said. “But when we got the pictures and started looking at them, we saw that the woman’s body was still in the other vehicle.”
Craig said that had they run the photograph in their story about the accident, the dead woman’s family likely would have seen it, so they decided against including it. “They wouldn’t have thought anything about [including the photo] in D.C. or New York,” Craig said.
Camille believes it is also the newspaper’s job to act as “community cheerleader” — to highlight the kids who make the Dean’s List, graduate at the top of their class, or receive an athletic scholarship.
The Grant County Press has survived in part because many of its subscribers don’t have reliable Internet access, which means the paper rarely has trouble selling ad space.
Gallup finds that just 23 percent of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence” in newspapers in 2018, down nearly a third over the last 20 years. That loss of trust is a direct result of the polarization of the national news media.
A recent study published in the Journal of Communication found a direct link between political polarization and the decline of community newspapers. With fewer local options, the public is more likely to get their news from national cable outlets such as CNN and Fox News and national talk radio shows, which traffic in opinion and outrage, and broadcast from large coastal cities.
“That, to me, has been the downfall of all media,” said Craig Howard. “It’s too opinionated and too slanted. And generally the people who present the news come from the urban areas, so by and large they are in New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles and somehow think because of that they have a handle on the whole country, and they don’t.”
Local journalists understand that to survive they must earn and keep the trust of their communities, which necessitates playing it straight.
“I think the biggest role for us to play is to stay focused on news and not expressing an opinion,” said Craig Howard. By doing so, local newspapers can help restore trust in the media and bridge America’s political divide.
Daniel Allott (@DanielAllott) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the author of Into Trump’s America and former deputy commentary editor at the Washington Examiner.
