*NOTE: I am using this post for my Creativity and Community class project, which will focus on how the coronavirus has impacted my life and the lives of those around me, specifically in regard to our sense of community. This is post 2/4.*
Let’s talk about newspapers. This week the articles I chose when looking at how coronavirus has impacted communities related to newspapers and how they are deeply suffering right now. I’m a journalist and the editor of a small town newspaper, and I can tell you, we are bleeding out more than ever before, and I’m not sure if the economy will come back in time for us to get the blood transfusion we desperately need.
We can’t totally blame the coronavirus for the death of newspapers, though. Print newspapers have been dying for years. It’s no secret. At least once a year, someone at the newspaper says, “I think we will be closed by this time next year.” You’ve got to be kidding yourself if you work at a print newspaper and don’t think this way at least a little. I’m 27 right now; I will not retire at the newspaper – that’s certain.
While I figured we probably had many more years before the time came to shut it down, none of us could have predicted coronavirus and the impact it would have. As the articles I shared stated, when businesses are forced to close due to state-mandates and stay-at-home orders, they make less money. When they make less money, they spend less on advertising. Newspapers make majority of their money on advertising and even before the coronavirus, newspapers across the country had been seeing years of dissipating advertising revenues. A newspaper that doesn’t make money, eventually stops printing. In our case, it only took a week to go from a 22 page paper to 8 measly pages.
Big papers like the New York Times have been able to make money in subscriptions. In fact, I read last year that, for the first time ever, the NYT actually made more revenue from digital subscriptions than they did in advertising. That’s incredible, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to work for local newspapers. Local newspapers, while vital to local communities that the NYT doesn’t even know exists, lack community support.
When my paper, like many, implemented a paywall and asked for people to support us, they turned angry, demanding their news for free. While I agree, information should be available for all, it’s unrealistic to assume a paper (or any business) can survive on no money. I love what I do deeply, and certainly, I wish the advertising revenues were there in order to keep all news access free, but it’s just not the reality. Citizens don’t support the newspaper, and neither do many businesses–some of which then expect these same newspapers to write an article about them or share a press release about what they are doing; they expect the newspaper to share their good news, without any return in support.
I think the coronavirus will just be the final nail in the coffin for many local newspapers. Remember, “democracy dies in darkness” and “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” No one reports on your kid’s baseball team or communities coming together in times of peril like your local paper. No one keeps city councils and county commissioners honest like your local paper. No one shares the stories of the individuals in your community like your local paper.
With coronavirus coverage, many newspapers, like mine, have dropped paywalls out of goodwill to keep their communities informed. Journalists, like myself, are working now with less staff and longer hours to keep their communities up-to-date on what their town’s repose to coronavirus is. Personally, our newspaper’s website has never seen more traffic, and I hope that that traffic does convert to subscribers who see our value. We are providing people with the information they need–information they can’t get from mega news organizations.
Newspapers keep communities informed and they make communities better. Without them, people are often left in the dark and no one is there to keep a watchful eye on those who need a watchful eye kept on them. Communities are worse off when their local newspaper shuts up shop; I only wish I could make people really understand what the death of a newspaper means for their community.
The community newspaper is a small business. There are employees to pay (I don’t do this for free!) and lights to keep on. Your local reporter or newspaper carrier is your neighbor or friend, and many of us may become unemployed sooner than we thought thanks in part to the coronavirus, but let’s be real, it’s largely in part to lack of community support that has been continued to dwindle for years.
PS: Support your local journalist and subscribe to your local newspaper today. If you’re reading this and want to keep me employed, click here: https://timesbulletin.com/Content/Home/ENL/ENLSignup/ENLSignup/1/1/1