One 'needle sewing the thread binding Rural America together': a weekly paper run by a College of Journalism

This week's Echo; for a larger version, click on it.

When a journalism school takes over a rural weekly newspaper, it's not just about preserving local news coverage and giving students real-world experience. It's also about sustaining the enterprise, adjusting to the digital environment and overcoming suspicion of outsiders at the local paper.

That's the unspoken message in what University of Georgia faculty member Amanda Bright calls "the first snapshot of what building a news-academic partnership to avert a news desert looks like," in her report for NiemanLab at Harvard University.

Bright is, in effect, the publisher of The Oglethorpe Echo, which was going to close 18 months ago until Oglethorpe County resident, newspaper-chain co-owner and Georgia alum Dink NeSmith put it into a nonprofit and got Charles Davis, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, to staff it with journalism students.

With 20 students writing at least 10 bylined stories a week, coverage has improved and subscriptions have doubled, Bright reports: "A website, audio and video reporting, a weekly email newsletter, and regular posts on Facebook and Instagram have aided that growth, too. These products alone reach 4,500 each week, nearly a third of the county’s population. On the flip side, our Twitter and YouTube have languished, and our website’s high bounce rate shows that our paywall rarely leads to conversions. However, we plan to implement digital advertising and sponsorships in the next six months or so, which will change that paywall strategy significantly."

A survey of 75 Echo readers by the school's Kyser Lough provided encouragement and caution. "It’s possible to build trust when new to a community, but it’s nearly impossible to escape the perception of bias," Bright writes. "However humble and intentional our approach, there’s a gap revealed through perceived bias and occasional errors. Just 42% of our community felt strongly that the Echo was not biased at all in its reporting. . . . One error can undo months of good-faith effort. Our editor, Andy Johnston, has handled complaints transparently, inviting those who say we got it wrong into dialogue. But, it’s hard, especially in a community where missteps travel fast (usually in Facebook groups). In the end, though, the data is encouraging; 82% said they feel some level of trust in our coverage."

Bright says the survey also found some readers unhappy with "journalistic editing" of material from local residents, and removal of "long, unsubstantiated police-report narratives." But some said the reports "create suspicions" and wecomed their replacement by bullet-point arrest reports.

The county seat of Lexington is 15 miles from
Athens and the university. (Wikipedia, adapted)

Some also said they appreciated the Echo's effort to "intentionally pursue stories from a variety of demographics" in a county that is 79% white, 16% Black, and 7% Hispanic or Latino, Bright reports. "One long-time subscriber mentioned he didn’t remember seeing any photos of Black community members on the front page before we took over. It was a record we were happy to break."

And the survey of readers elicited at least one comment that resonates far beyond the borders of Oglethorpe County and Georgia. One of them wrote, “I believe printed news is the needle sewing the thread binding Rural America together. More publications such as the Echo are needed in today’s times.”