By Al Cross, Director and Professor
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky
Amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the fate of most daily newspapers, the status and role of the weekly newspapers that serve rural America has become obscured, and sometimes confused with their city cousins.
The latest example of that was an otherwise excellent story in The Wall Street Journal, which said "Local newspapers are failing to make the digital transition larger players did — and are in danger of vanishing." As evidence, it cited the work of Penny Abernathy at the University of North Carolina, who found that "nearly 1,800 newspapers closed between 2004 and 2018, leaving 200 counties with no newspaper and roughly half the counties in the country with only one."
All but about 50 of those closed or merged newspapers were weeklies, but the story does not make that distinction, and it's otherwise about dailies; the words "weekly" or even "week" never appear. So, Abernathy's data is used as a warning device, but it needs an explanation; most of the weeklies that closed were urban or suburban papers in metropolitan areas, or rural papers with very small markets.
That is illustrated by the biggest graphic with the story, a map with the actual numbers of newspaper closures or mergers, from Abernathy's data, and online media startups in each state, from Michele's List, operated by Michele McLellan at the University of Missouri.
The main point of the story, by Keach Hagey, Lukas I. Alpert and Yaryna Serkez, is this: "A stark divide has emerged between a handful of national players that have managed to stabilize their businesses and local outlets for which time is running out, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of circulation, advertising, financial and employment data." Those players are the Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, which have national audiences that can generate subscriptions at more reasonable prices than most smaller dailies.
The story has lots of good information and well-displayed graphics, but it's not about the most typical newspaper in America: A rural or exurban weekly that provides the only reliable, relevant coverage of news it its locality. Those newspapers are facing challenges, too, but not as dire as those at most dailies. At least not yet. The story does hint at the relative health of papers in smaller markets: "Smaller papers with circulation under 20,000 were actually somewhat better off, with a median circulation drop of only 41%."
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky
Amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the fate of most daily newspapers, the status and role of the weekly newspapers that serve rural America has become obscured, and sometimes confused with their city cousins.
The latest example of that was an otherwise excellent story in The Wall Street Journal, which said "Local newspapers are failing to make the digital transition larger players did — and are in danger of vanishing." As evidence, it cited the work of Penny Abernathy at the University of North Carolina, who found that "nearly 1,800 newspapers closed between 2004 and 2018, leaving 200 counties with no newspaper and roughly half the counties in the country with only one."
All but about 50 of those closed or merged newspapers were weeklies, but the story does not make that distinction, and it's otherwise about dailies; the words "weekly" or even "week" never appear. So, Abernathy's data is used as a warning device, but it needs an explanation; most of the weeklies that closed were urban or suburban papers in metropolitan areas, or rural papers with very small markets.
That is illustrated by the biggest graphic with the story, a map with the actual numbers of newspaper closures or mergers, from Abernathy's data, and online media startups in each state, from Michele's List, operated by Michele McLellan at the University of Missouri.
The main point of the story, by Keach Hagey, Lukas I. Alpert and Yaryna Serkez, is this: "A stark divide has emerged between a handful of national players that have managed to stabilize their businesses and local outlets for which time is running out, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of circulation, advertising, financial and employment data." Those players are the Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, which have national audiences that can generate subscriptions at more reasonable prices than most smaller dailies.
The story has lots of good information and well-displayed graphics, but it's not about the most typical newspaper in America: A rural or exurban weekly that provides the only reliable, relevant coverage of news it its locality. Those newspapers are facing challenges, too, but not as dire as those at most dailies. At least not yet. The story does hint at the relative health of papers in smaller markets: "Smaller papers with circulation under 20,000 were actually somewhat better off, with a median circulation drop of only 41%."
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