Papers avoided pandemic 'extinction event' but more challenges loom, especially for family owners, expert says

There was good news in the State of Local News 2022 report from the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University, but bad news is still happening and it could get much worse, the director of the initiative said as he and a fellow researcher discussed the report Wednesday.

The loss of 360 newspapers since late 2019 was about double what longtime researcher Penny Abernathy expected, but the good news was that many observers thought the pandemic “could be an extinction-level event and it didn’t turn out to be that way,” said her co-researcher, Tim Franklin, director of the initiative and senior associate dean of the Medill School of Journalism.

Tim Franklin

During the pandemic, Franklin said, newspapers lost 40% of their advertising revenue but saw a 50% increase in digital subscriptions: “That showed the interest and the need for local news.”

But Franklin worries that inflation, led by skyrocketed prices for fuel and newsprint, “means it’s gonna be really tough sledding over the next year or two” for newspapers. Add to that the prospect of a recession, and “This could be a really pivotal moment for a lot of folks, but this could also accelerate the movement from print to digital.”

Hundreds of pivotal moments await family-owned weekly newspapers, which need buyers but don't want to sell to chains. Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro of the National Trust for Local News, which tries to keep newspapers in local hands, asked about the “time horizon” for family owners who need to find acceptable buyers. Franklin said the head of an unnamed press association told him two months ago, “This is urgent, we need to move fast; publishers are scared in many cases because of the economic situation.” Franklin added, “He was echoing sentiment from a lot of folks.”

The report by Abernathy and Franklin has a warning: "If current trends continue unabated, by the end of 2025, we will have lost a third of newspapers and almost two-thirds of journalists employed two decades ago in local newspapers, with only 600 or so news sites attempting to fill the gap."