This week marks the last publication of the Hemingford Ledger, a newspaper that has existed since 1907. In recent years we have seen the Alliance Times-Herald make the transition from a daily to a weekly newspaper. The Eagle Radio stations that serve our area rarely send out reporters, instead relying on press releases for their news.
Since 2005, the United States has lost about a third of its newspapers, according to Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. Now there are about 6,000 newspapers left in the U.S., with only about 1,200 published daily. We’ve lost almost two-thirds of the journalists employed at newspapers two decades ago. The large metropolitan papers that once employed hundreds today employ only a few dozen reporters. Local media employ only a handful.
What happened? The Internet. We can go online to easily find national and state news. Depending on the source, it may be reliable or it may be propaganda. Either way, it is accessible.
What about local news? Are we being informed? We all know people who rely on social media, specifically Facebook, to learn about local happenings. And that is hit and miss, depending on how many ads and “cute” reposts fill our feeds, causing information from our friends to be lost.
As a result, our local news is missing the stories that once inspired us to engage with others and to solve problems. Local news media documents everyday life, connecting people to one another. Faces we know appear in the photographs. We find out about people who have died, or had a child, or are hosting a celebration. New businesses rely on media to introduce them to the area. In the past, every local event was covered by our papers and radio stations.
Remember feature stories? They introduced us to interesting characters who lived just around the block, down the road, or across town. They told us about entrepreneurs in our area and the interesting businesses they were opening. Organizations like service clubs had major projects they wanted everyone to know about. Schools shared what was happening in classrooms and student activities.
An important role performed by community journalists is to act as a watchdog=, covering routine government and school meetings and courthouse proceedings. With no news coverage, there’s little scrutiny of government decisions. Good local government relies on public discussion and outreach to elected officials and other leaders.
In the book Saving Community Journalism, author Penny Abernathy drew some conclusions. “Healthy community news organizations support both our democratic and capitalist way of life at the most basic level — in our villages, towns, city blocks and counties where we work, play, spend our incomes and elect our public officials.” and “The expectations of both readers and advertisers have changed dramatically. This requires news organizations to adopt a new way of thinking about community and about funding the publication.”
There is a lot of concern nationally about news deserts, especially in rural America. Today nearly half of all counties in the U.S. have only one newspaper, while more than 200 counties have none at all – making them news deserts.
It is difficult to fault the decision to end publication of the Hemingford Ledger. I don’t know anything about their economic situation: how many paying subscriptions, what is the advertising revenue, what are the costs of printing and staffing? I wish my friend Kay the best of luck; new opportunities and a wonderful future await!