Media chatter about the state of journalism tends to go big — big city, that is: Seattle loses a major daily; a media conglomerate lays off hundreds of people in dozens of cities; deep cuts by the Denver Post’s hedge-fund owners spark a mutiny. But urban news woes often have a silver lining, with nonprofits and online-only outlets replacing at least some of what was lost.
What about the newspapers and weeklies that serve the large, sparsely populated expanses of the rural West? From their cramped small-town offices, these papers serve not only as sources of information, but also community pillars — local institutions. When they fold, often after publishing every week without fail for decades, they are rarely replaced by anything more substantial than a community bulletin board on Facebook.
The Expanding News Desert report — as its name makes clear — paints a grim picture. The urban news industry might be struggling, but it has folded altogether in rural counties across the West. Yet there are still reasons to celebrate, despite the report’s overall bleakness. Some of the nation’s most rural areas have held on to their newspapers, and even have more than one, giving them per capita coverage unmatched by much bigger metro areas.
In small towns across the West, dozens of tiny staffs — often consisting of little more than the publisher and her spouse — pound out stories about county and town meetings, elections, weddings, births and deaths, week after week, without paid vacations, health insurance and 401(k)s, often bombarded by angry mail and ever-rising production costs. Nevertheless, they persist, even as their urban compatriots give in.
Where the news is drying up — and where it’s not
Newspaper closures, mergers and circulation 2004-2018
IDAHO Lost 10 weeklies and one daily newspaper to closures or mergers. Newspaper circulation fell by 31 percent, from 410,000 in 2004, to 280,000 in 2018. | WASHINGTON Lost 11 weeklies and three dailies. Circulation dropped from 2.5 million to 1.6 million, or 37 percent. | CALIFORNIA Lost a total of 73 newspapers, (31 dailies and 42 weeklies). Circulation has plummeted from 13 million to 8 million. | WYOMING Lost four papers, all weeklies. Circulation plunged 34 percent, from 240,000 to 150,000. | MONTANA Lost three weeklies. Circulation dropped from 400,000 to 310,000. | ALASKA Lost nine weeklies. and circulation dropped by more than half from 300,000 to 140,000. No online news organizations are based in Alaska. |
Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News. He is the author of River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster. Email him at jonathan@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. Follow @jonnypeace
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Rural areas can be hit hardest … But many small-town papers persevere.
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