We have the Cincinnati Enquirer that tells us barely anything about Northern KY. There are two internet papers that do deal with KY things but only some. Better than nothing. I subscribe to the Enquirer and the two locals mainly to keep them going and I do get some things of interest from them. The two KY ones have some interesting articles about growing up on the riverboats and various river type things.
The locals seem to do features about the area history or activities/sites tourists might be interested in--and of course tourists don't care about school board elections. 🙄
As someone with a degree in Journalism and a daily habit of reading the paper since high school in the 60s, I find this terribly depressing. I live in one of the countries larger cities and the state capital so we still have both paper and digital versions of daily news. But it’s fraction of what it once was. If there’s a paper for our neighborhood within the city I haven’t found it yet.
That's what we're missing--stories about what's going on in our backyards. In our fast-growing county, important things happen that don't get noticed, like the new huge transmission line cutting across the county just a mile or so from us. I still remember my grandmother's rural paper, which gave reports on people's visits to family, meetings of the Crochet Circle, cases of measles (before the vax), weather events (barn blew down). All that's gone now. 😒We know more about what's happening in Gaza and Iran. And yes, that's sad.
Another blow to journalism is the Gen AI summaries at the top of the search. For example a person searches for LA protest reads the summary and never clicks on an actual news outlet thus depriving them of views.
When I moved to my rural East Texas county 30 years ago, it had two twice weekly newspapers. They provided coverage of local government, elections, local sports and all the announcements that once characterized local newspapers. They shrank to once a week and then one had employees who embezzled funds. It ended up being bought by the other one and closed. At least we do have one newspaper but it’s providing less and less coverage of all the city council, school board, county commissioner court, hospital board and other elected officials.
Diane, you're very right about those bot summaries at the top of the search. Many hurried and harried users (is that *all* of us) may find enough there to answer our question, so we don't dig further, looking for the more extensive and nuanced explanation. And those websites that depend on our traffic don't get "fed," and their ad revenue dries up.
Your description of your newspaper situation is sadly typical. And the mis/disinformation sources are filling the vacuum.
You might find journalist Karen Hao’s new book Empire of AI interesting given that it provides a journalist’s well researched analysis of AI. For an intro, she recently appeared on the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us to discuss her research and the book.
As for myself, I have appreciated your work for decades, thank you for all you do.
Welcome, Georgie, and thank you for reading my work. I miss working in longform, but stepping away from novels has given me time to explore a wider variety of subjects. I'm grateful for this platform, with its close connections with readers.
Hao's book is on my TBR stack--I've read a couple of chapters. It's an important book and will get a lot of media attention. I know that many of us are deeply ambivalent about AI, in all its concerning aspects. But we have to live with it, in the same way that we have to live with Big Oil and its climate changing practices if we want to drive our cars or fly in airplanes or stay warm in winter. And as we've seen with Facebook and Google, ideals can get shifted into real-world pragmatism pretty quickly, especially when there's a substantial promise of profits. A large subject, more later. 🤔
We have always taken a local paper, still do though it is a weekly, that has purchased several small papers in Northern Oregon to provide those towns with local coverage. Yes, you are correct that 60% of local paper is editorials and sports. Also subscribe to and read the New York Times, electronic version.
For 10 years I served as a volunteer on the Juneau PBS station TV news team helping produce and floor directing the nightly news. I learned much from those dedicated staff. Still support Public Radio and TV more than ever.
And they (PBS, NPR) are more threatened than ever. Huge challenge--not at all clear whether it can be met. Sadly, local networks seem to be a casualty in most authoritarian regimes, which aim for a centralized control of the "news."
Good Night and Good Luck was so timely considering that it was written quite a while ago. The panel afterwards was very interesting. You could see the differences is comments based on their ages. I will have to give credit to The Texas Tribue for the number of reporters on the staff and for its non-partisan coverage state-wide. I have noticed a little more local news in the Austin Statesman since it's no longer a part of USA Today.
The only constant in time is change. Ever since the internet exploded things have been changing. Some for the better; some for not. With Amazon and online shopping and the internet in general, how people buy some things has changed and buying habits brought advertising with them. With people online for one reason or another advertisers followed them. With ad revenue and readership changing away from local newspapers, local newspapers have been dying. I don't see that changing for the moment. Although I'm sure some sort of change will come.
I was interested in one thing in particular you said, Susan - "you’ll still find lots of local sports coverage (because readers demand it)." If readers were demanding other types of local coverage maybe THAT would make a difference.
I've been involved in my "Nextdoor" community forum. They seem to be ALL over. I wouldn't be surprised if there's one in your area - in each of your areas. They're not being used (at least so far) LIKE a local newspaper was, but I'll bet they COULD be. Change needs to be embraced and even shaped to suit our DEMANDS...
My husband was a reporter for several local papers in the 70s and 80s, then freelanced for them while he was getting his PhD in the 90s. All that time, the papers' readerships were dying out. These were mostly in rural area and for decades the only source of trusted news. We now subscribe to the ones in the township where our seasonal house is--both print and online to keep them alive but its so heartbreaking.
Yes, it is heartbreaking--but perhaps mostly to those of us who remember the contributions those papers made to our lives. In another couple of decades, those who understand what's been lost will be gone as well. I think of this often when I read posts about the "importance of place." Those local newspapers were our chronicles of place. "Places" will still exist, but will there be any chronicles?
I moved from San Antonio to College Station a year ago. This makes me think I should continue to subscribe to the local paper even though most of it is sports for Aggies and the local high schools. I use the San Antonio paper for real news, what there is of it.
The BCS Eagle has been shrinking since I relocated to the area approximately 20 years ago. It is now delivered by MAIL every other day resulting in its most timely coverage arriving in the evening and at worst, 2 days later(ie: Sunday paper on Tuesday evening and IMO uselessly save the puzzles/comics). A generic "lifestyle" filler section appropriate to the owner's multipaper stable and the most popular sports both nationally and locally create volume. The local youth sports font is nearly illegible it is so small. The national news is from a wire service feed and some local politics with a reporter attending meetings create the front section. Most reports are after the shouting is over. It's a sad sack of a paper but I loathe to not support them for fear of the long-term consequences for the community.
We have one here, and it's been useful several times. Just last week, an announcement of a big transmission line that may be coming just north of our little community. Ugh. (File under: Things you don't want to know about but should.)
Melissa, the situation these days reminds me of the early 1930s, when weekly newspapers bought what they called "ready-print" from a couple of national aggregators. That is, they bought a package of (usually) 4 pages ready to set in type locally. It was national news and lifestyle, comics, et. Then all they had to do was fill in 2 pages of local news and they were ready to go to press. (I learned this when I was writing the Dahlias.) Feels like we're back to that practice again.
I subscribe to a local daily online. Like your local College Station paper, it's mainly local sports and ads for churches (big Christian influence in our county). But it does cover the big stories, like the book ban issue and (just yesterday) a huge transmission line project that's going to impact everybody at this end of the county. So you never can tell about the "real news"--something may come along that you really need to know about!
In St. Louis, Missouri we are fortunate to have the St. Louis Post Dispatch which gives us good local news and news of the immediate area - Missouri and Illinois. The paper itself has shrunk with more imported content - but a few more good comics. We also get some local commentary of a fairly fearless type but not as much real description of what our fearful leader is doing on a daily basis as I would wish. Editorials are honest and critical but not as critical as I would like..
Your P-D has a long history of strong coverage, but (like many other papers) a more recent history of editorial cutbacks. Wikipedia has a good survey of its history, including presidential candidate endorsements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Post-Dispatch
When I moved to my rural village of 3k people, there was a local weekly newspaper owned and managed by one woman, who did most of the writing, editing and publishing. I just discovered that it was started in 1903! In 2020, the paper partnered with two other weekly newspapers in two nearby towns, forming the regional publication, Columbia Gorge News. It was an important move (by a local woman) to maintain local news coverage. The paper does a good job of covering important regional concerns and sports and it offers much of its news in a Spanish version because we are an agricultural region with significant Latino/a population.
My county's seat has a newspaper, owned and published by one person. This paper has become increasingly important as a source of information about our controversial, MAGA Constitutional sheriff who like Trump loves the spotlight and regularly offers up his examples of his prejudice and ignorance. Two years ago, a young Yakima man died by suicide in the county jail while going through opioid withdrawal. He begged to go to the hospital but the sheriff's dept said no. Later that year, a Yakima woman with mental health issues was left to essentially rot in her cell for almost a month without her medication. When finally taken to the hospital, she was covered in lice, fungi was growing in on her body, she was malnourished and spent a month in the hospital recovering. The local newspaper covered these appalling incidents, eventually resulting in the county commissioners removing the county jail from the Sheriff's responsibility. I am not sure that would have happened if not for the coverage of the stories.
I subscribe to both papers.
I live on southern border of WA State; across the Columbia River is Oregon. TV/radio news coverage is out of Portland OR so I know far more about Oregon politics than my own state. I have subscribed to the Seattle Times - the largest newspaper in our state - in the past to keep up with our state politics.
I have finished listening to the WaPo book and look forward to the discussion.
Sue, your story here gives us an example of local journalism at its best--but also at its most fragile. One-person ownership/publication leaves no room for error. And if that owner's politics are extreme and narrow, it can become a megaphone for mis/disinformation. (We have a situation like that in our county.) So glad to hear that your local papers offer a more balanced coverage. So important in keeping an eye on law enforcement, school boards, library boards, etc.
Thanks for the commentary about the state of journalism in our country. Your insightful work keeps me informed and forewarned! I did see Goodnight and Good luck. It was so good! It mirrored the abuses to our Constitutional rights happening today! Without due diligence , history does repeat itself. By the way did you notice that Silas switched who played the main characters? Looking forward to your next post. Cyd
Cyd, that GNGL script was written in 2004, at a time when the news on the runup to the Iraq War was being suppressed by the Bush admin. Yes, history DOES repeat itself. Over. And. Over.
Silas did get his characters straight. In that note, he's referring to the 2005 film Clooney made, where Clooney cast himself as Friendly. (Strathairn is magnificent as Murrow.)
Agree: Clooney was excellent. I thought it was strange that I didn't hear a mention of the movie--I don't think that was intentional, just a matter of focus. But it *is* interesting to trace the history of this project. For instance, Clooney had to mortgage his house to fund the movie, which got many awards/nominations. He obviously believes that Murrow's story is important--we needed to hear it back in 2005 and we need to hear it again, NOW.
Our local newspaper is hanging by a thread. To understand what’s happening truly helps. I complain each time I renew about the lack of real news (especially local) we’re paying for. I have not read the book yet, but truly need to!
We have the Cincinnati Enquirer that tells us barely anything about Northern KY. There are two internet papers that do deal with KY things but only some. Better than nothing. I subscribe to the Enquirer and the two locals mainly to keep them going and I do get some things of interest from them. The two KY ones have some interesting articles about growing up on the riverboats and various river type things.
The locals seem to do features about the area history or activities/sites tourists might be interested in--and of course tourists don't care about school board elections. 🙄
As someone with a degree in Journalism and a daily habit of reading the paper since high school in the 60s, I find this terribly depressing. I live in one of the countries larger cities and the state capital so we still have both paper and digital versions of daily news. But it’s fraction of what it once was. If there’s a paper for our neighborhood within the city I haven’t found it yet.
That's what we're missing--stories about what's going on in our backyards. In our fast-growing county, important things happen that don't get noticed, like the new huge transmission line cutting across the county just a mile or so from us. I still remember my grandmother's rural paper, which gave reports on people's visits to family, meetings of the Crochet Circle, cases of measles (before the vax), weather events (barn blew down). All that's gone now. 😒We know more about what's happening in Gaza and Iran. And yes, that's sad.
Another blow to journalism is the Gen AI summaries at the top of the search. For example a person searches for LA protest reads the summary and never clicks on an actual news outlet thus depriving them of views.
When I moved to my rural East Texas county 30 years ago, it had two twice weekly newspapers. They provided coverage of local government, elections, local sports and all the announcements that once characterized local newspapers. They shrank to once a week and then one had employees who embezzled funds. It ended up being bought by the other one and closed. At least we do have one newspaper but it’s providing less and less coverage of all the city council, school board, county commissioner court, hospital board and other elected officials.
Diane, you're very right about those bot summaries at the top of the search. Many hurried and harried users (is that *all* of us) may find enough there to answer our question, so we don't dig further, looking for the more extensive and nuanced explanation. And those websites that depend on our traffic don't get "fed," and their ad revenue dries up.
Your description of your newspaper situation is sadly typical. And the mis/disinformation sources are filling the vacuum.
You might find journalist Karen Hao’s new book Empire of AI interesting given that it provides a journalist’s well researched analysis of AI. For an intro, she recently appeared on the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us to discuss her research and the book.
As for myself, I have appreciated your work for decades, thank you for all you do.
Welcome, Georgie, and thank you for reading my work. I miss working in longform, but stepping away from novels has given me time to explore a wider variety of subjects. I'm grateful for this platform, with its close connections with readers.
Hao's book is on my TBR stack--I've read a couple of chapters. It's an important book and will get a lot of media attention. I know that many of us are deeply ambivalent about AI, in all its concerning aspects. But we have to live with it, in the same way that we have to live with Big Oil and its climate changing practices if we want to drive our cars or fly in airplanes or stay warm in winter. And as we've seen with Facebook and Google, ideals can get shifted into real-world pragmatism pretty quickly, especially when there's a substantial promise of profits. A large subject, more later. 🤔
We have always taken a local paper, still do though it is a weekly, that has purchased several small papers in Northern Oregon to provide those towns with local coverage. Yes, you are correct that 60% of local paper is editorials and sports. Also subscribe to and read the New York Times, electronic version.
For 10 years I served as a volunteer on the Juneau PBS station TV news team helping produce and floor directing the nightly news. I learned much from those dedicated staff. Still support Public Radio and TV more than ever.
And they (PBS, NPR) are more threatened than ever. Huge challenge--not at all clear whether it can be met. Sadly, local networks seem to be a casualty in most authoritarian regimes, which aim for a centralized control of the "news."
Good Night and Good Luck was so timely considering that it was written quite a while ago. The panel afterwards was very interesting. You could see the differences is comments based on their ages. I will have to give credit to The Texas Tribue for the number of reporters on the staff and for its non-partisan coverage state-wide. I have noticed a little more local news in the Austin Statesman since it's no longer a part of USA Today.
The only constant in time is change. Ever since the internet exploded things have been changing. Some for the better; some for not. With Amazon and online shopping and the internet in general, how people buy some things has changed and buying habits brought advertising with them. With people online for one reason or another advertisers followed them. With ad revenue and readership changing away from local newspapers, local newspapers have been dying. I don't see that changing for the moment. Although I'm sure some sort of change will come.
I was interested in one thing in particular you said, Susan - "you’ll still find lots of local sports coverage (because readers demand it)." If readers were demanding other types of local coverage maybe THAT would make a difference.
I've been involved in my "Nextdoor" community forum. They seem to be ALL over. I wouldn't be surprised if there's one in your area - in each of your areas. They're not being used (at least so far) LIKE a local newspaper was, but I'll bet they COULD be. Change needs to be embraced and even shaped to suit our DEMANDS...
My husband was a reporter for several local papers in the 70s and 80s, then freelanced for them while he was getting his PhD in the 90s. All that time, the papers' readerships were dying out. These were mostly in rural area and for decades the only source of trusted news. We now subscribe to the ones in the township where our seasonal house is--both print and online to keep them alive but its so heartbreaking.
Yes, it is heartbreaking--but perhaps mostly to those of us who remember the contributions those papers made to our lives. In another couple of decades, those who understand what's been lost will be gone as well. I think of this often when I read posts about the "importance of place." Those local newspapers were our chronicles of place. "Places" will still exist, but will there be any chronicles?
I moved from San Antonio to College Station a year ago. This makes me think I should continue to subscribe to the local paper even though most of it is sports for Aggies and the local high schools. I use the San Antonio paper for real news, what there is of it.
The BCS Eagle has been shrinking since I relocated to the area approximately 20 years ago. It is now delivered by MAIL every other day resulting in its most timely coverage arriving in the evening and at worst, 2 days later(ie: Sunday paper on Tuesday evening and IMO uselessly save the puzzles/comics). A generic "lifestyle" filler section appropriate to the owner's multipaper stable and the most popular sports both nationally and locally create volume. The local youth sports font is nearly illegible it is so small. The national news is from a wire service feed and some local politics with a reporter attending meetings create the front section. Most reports are after the shouting is over. It's a sad sack of a paper but I loathe to not support them for fear of the long-term consequences for the community.
I just subscribe to online papers. Nothing to toss or save! I will continue to subscribe.
We have one here, and it's been useful several times. Just last week, an announcement of a big transmission line that may be coming just north of our little community. Ugh. (File under: Things you don't want to know about but should.)
Melissa, the situation these days reminds me of the early 1930s, when weekly newspapers bought what they called "ready-print" from a couple of national aggregators. That is, they bought a package of (usually) 4 pages ready to set in type locally. It was national news and lifestyle, comics, et. Then all they had to do was fill in 2 pages of local news and they were ready to go to press. (I learned this when I was writing the Dahlias.) Feels like we're back to that practice again.
You had excellent local coverage in SA, Fran.
I subscribe to a local daily online. Like your local College Station paper, it's mainly local sports and ads for churches (big Christian influence in our county). But it does cover the big stories, like the book ban issue and (just yesterday) a huge transmission line project that's going to impact everybody at this end of the county. So you never can tell about the "real news"--something may come along that you really need to know about!
In St. Louis, Missouri we are fortunate to have the St. Louis Post Dispatch which gives us good local news and news of the immediate area - Missouri and Illinois. The paper itself has shrunk with more imported content - but a few more good comics. We also get some local commentary of a fairly fearless type but not as much real description of what our fearful leader is doing on a daily basis as I would wish. Editorials are honest and critical but not as critical as I would like..
Your P-D has a long history of strong coverage, but (like many other papers) a more recent history of editorial cutbacks. Wikipedia has a good survey of its history, including presidential candidate endorsements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Post-Dispatch
When I moved to my rural village of 3k people, there was a local weekly newspaper owned and managed by one woman, who did most of the writing, editing and publishing. I just discovered that it was started in 1903! In 2020, the paper partnered with two other weekly newspapers in two nearby towns, forming the regional publication, Columbia Gorge News. It was an important move (by a local woman) to maintain local news coverage. The paper does a good job of covering important regional concerns and sports and it offers much of its news in a Spanish version because we are an agricultural region with significant Latino/a population.
My county's seat has a newspaper, owned and published by one person. This paper has become increasingly important as a source of information about our controversial, MAGA Constitutional sheriff who like Trump loves the spotlight and regularly offers up his examples of his prejudice and ignorance. Two years ago, a young Yakima man died by suicide in the county jail while going through opioid withdrawal. He begged to go to the hospital but the sheriff's dept said no. Later that year, a Yakima woman with mental health issues was left to essentially rot in her cell for almost a month without her medication. When finally taken to the hospital, she was covered in lice, fungi was growing in on her body, she was malnourished and spent a month in the hospital recovering. The local newspaper covered these appalling incidents, eventually resulting in the county commissioners removing the county jail from the Sheriff's responsibility. I am not sure that would have happened if not for the coverage of the stories.
I subscribe to both papers.
I live on southern border of WA State; across the Columbia River is Oregon. TV/radio news coverage is out of Portland OR so I know far more about Oregon politics than my own state. I have subscribed to the Seattle Times - the largest newspaper in our state - in the past to keep up with our state politics.
I have finished listening to the WaPo book and look forward to the discussion.
Sue, your story here gives us an example of local journalism at its best--but also at its most fragile. One-person ownership/publication leaves no room for error. And if that owner's politics are extreme and narrow, it can become a megaphone for mis/disinformation. (We have a situation like that in our county.) So glad to hear that your local papers offer a more balanced coverage. So important in keeping an eye on law enforcement, school boards, library boards, etc.
Thanks for this report. It's encouraging!
Hi Susan,
Thanks for the commentary about the state of journalism in our country. Your insightful work keeps me informed and forewarned! I did see Goodnight and Good luck. It was so good! It mirrored the abuses to our Constitutional rights happening today! Without due diligence , history does repeat itself. By the way did you notice that Silas switched who played the main characters? Looking forward to your next post. Cyd
YES!!!!
Cyd, that GNGL script was written in 2004, at a time when the news on the runup to the Iraq War was being suppressed by the Bush admin. Yes, history DOES repeat itself. Over. And. Over.
Silas did get his characters straight. In that note, he's referring to the 2005 film Clooney made, where Clooney cast himself as Friendly. (Strathairn is magnificent as Murrow.)
Thx Susan , I haven’t seen the movie. I will have to now. I thought Clooney was good as Murrow.
Agree: Clooney was excellent. I thought it was strange that I didn't hear a mention of the movie--I don't think that was intentional, just a matter of focus. But it *is* interesting to trace the history of this project. For instance, Clooney had to mortgage his house to fund the movie, which got many awards/nominations. He obviously believes that Murrow's story is important--we needed to hear it back in 2005 and we need to hear it again, NOW.
Our local newspaper is hanging by a thread. To understand what’s happening truly helps. I complain each time I renew about the lack of real news (especially local) we’re paying for. I have not read the book yet, but truly need to!
Thank you for informing us!
At least it's still there, Susan. Hope it can hang on!