A photographer searches for democracy in rural America and tries to tell us 'what's lost when newspapers close'

Former home of the newspaper in Dodge City, Kansas (Photos by Jonathan Ariaz,, Fourth Estate project)

Ink knives at the Russell County News, Russell, Kan.

In the United States, credible news sources, such as newspapers, function to safeguard democracy by: promoting inclusion and participation, informing the electorate, supporting basic rights and helping citizens manage the agenda. Within that framework, it makes sense that "Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, photographer Jeremiah Ariaz, who wanted to make images that showed what democracy looked like in rural America traveled across the country . . . . visiting campaign offices, main streets, protest sites and sometimes, newspapers," reports Kristen Hare of The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit that supports media literacy and journalism ethics.

Ariaz's first stop was "Main Street in Sublette, Kansas. He was standing with his camera and tripod when a man approached him, asked what he was doing, and invited the photographer to stop by his office," Hare writes. "The man thought he had something Ariaz might be interested in." Ariaz told Hare, “It ended up being the local newspaper office.”

Hare writes: "Kenneth Bell showed Ariaz the newspaper’s archives and the newsroom’s abandoned darkroom. Immediately, Ariaz realized how what he was seeing in the Haskell County Monitor-Chief tied in with the bigger questions he had about democracy and rural America. . . . In 2022, Ariaz took a sabbatical from his full-time job as a professor of art and headed back to his native Kansas. He visited 115 newspapers – closed, moved and still publishing."

Paper rolls at The Morning Sun, Pittsburg, Kansas

Ariaz's tour helped him track and illustrate the history of local newspapers. Noting that the U.S. is losing about two newspapers a week, Hare writes, "While we’ve seen growth in some of the local for-and nonprofit online newsrooms working to fill the gaps left when newspapers close, Ariaz’s project, titled Fourth Estate, offers a different frame for what’s lost when newspapers close."

“I have to feel that something is missing when that ability for a citizen to engage is lost,” Ariaz told Hare. Newspapers that were still alive "were very much a part of the community in both the physical way in their presence but also their ability to engage with the public."

Ariaz's traveled to "publications that were still open and explained what he was trying to capture. Most invited him in. Many worried about what would happen to their archives and the community’s history if they closed," Hare writes. "Ariaz tried to visit bigger newspapers in bigger Kansas towns, but he couldn’t get ahold of anyone inside the newsrooms or inside the buildings themselves. Ariaz said that it felt like the people who own and run them were far away and unconcerned with the communities they were supposed to be serving." In many cases his photos reflect the fact that the newspapers no longer have pressrooms but hang on to their relics.