How do rural communities sustain journalism that supports democracy? Summit on rural journalism will seek answers

By Al Cross
Director and Professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

I don't remember who said it, but I'll never forget the moment I heard it: "There is no longer any business model for news."

That was alarming to someone who had spent his adult life working for newspapers or helping them. It was at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention in 2007, and the following year, the combination of the Great Recession and the digital media revolution began doing great violence to newspapers like the metropolitan daily where I had spent most of my career.

The digital hit came later for community newspapers, most of which have relatively little competition for local news, but come it did; and then came a pandemic that had an acute effect on their retail advertising bases as great as the now-chronic effect of digital platforms and online shopping.

We're out of pandemic mode, if not the pandemic, but the digital hit has lasted. You can see it in smaller page and staff counts at rural weeklies and small dailies (many if not most of which no longer meet the now-archaic definition of "daily" as printing four or more times a week), and the closure of the last newspaper in some counties, creating news deserts (a term that seems to no longer require quotation marks).

All this raises a fundamental question, not just for rural newspapers, but for their communities: How do rural communities sustain local journalism that supports local democracy? That is the question we aim to answer, or at least start answering, June 3 and 4 at the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, to be livestreamed on YouTube from 1:15 to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. until late afternoon Saturday.

The summit will be held at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill near Harrodsburg, Ky., where the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues held the first summit 15 years ago. Two dozen invited speakers and a local audience will try to answer the question by exploring the current landscape of rural journalism and how rural news media are adapting to it, with revised business models and other innovations. All sessions will include a period for questions, answers and discussion among participants. Here's the draft program:

The state of America’s community newspapers and their journalism: Penelope Muse Abernathy, visiting professor, Northwestern University, will update her groundbreaking research.

Reports from leaders of the community newspaper industry: National Newspaper Association Executive Director Lynne Lance will join former NNA president Robert Williams Jr. and Tom Silvestri of The Relevance Project of the Newspaper Association Managers.

Putting local philanthropy in your business model: Nathan Payne of Kaiser Health News, recently editor of the Traverse City Record-Eagle, on how community foundations can help; Jody Lawrence-Turner of the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism; and Dennis Brack of the Rappahannock News, Washington, Va., which uses local philanthropy for polling and reporting projects.

Converting your newspaper(s) to nonprofit status: Liz and Steve Parker, former owners and still operators of the New Jersey Hills Media Group, on their recent conversion to the nonprofit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media.

Good journalism is good business, but how do we make people want local news? Editor-Publishers Marshall Helmberger of the Timberjay, Tower, Minn.; and Sharon Burton of the Adair County Community Voice, Columbia, Ky.

How two community newspapers are adapting to change: Publishers Bill Horner of the Chatham (N.C.) News+Record and Terry Williams of the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel.

Innovation at other community newspapers: Tony Baranowski, Iowa Falls Times-Citizen, with Jim Iovino, director, NewStart, West Virginia University.

National funders and supporters on help for rural journalism: Jason Alcorn, vice president for learning and impact, American Journalism Project; Jonathan Kealing, chief network officer at the Institute for Nonprofit News; and Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, Columbia University, co-founder, National Trust for Local News.

A university-nonprofit team saves a weekly paper: Dink NeSmith of Community Newspapers Inc. and The Oglethorpe Echo, staffed by journalism students of the University of Georgia.

New business models for community newspapers, and a plan to test one: Dr. Teri Finneman, University of Kansas, who says many rural newspaper subscribers are willing to buy memberships and e-newsletters to keep their local papers healthy. (Read more)

What other research is needed to help community journalism? Bill Reader, Ohio University, and Clay Carey, Samford University, author of The News Untold: Community Journalism and the Failure to Confront Poverty in Appalachia.

Concluding roundtable, open-ended and led by Institute Director Al Cross and Jennifer Greer, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Communication and Information, sponsor of the Summit.