McClatchy lays off 30% of its unionized, local journalists

Newspaper publisher McClatchy, which owns several local newspapers throughout the United States, laid off more than 90 journalists and media workers across 17 publications on Sept. 10. Those laid off account for 30% of McClatchy’s unionized workers, according to The News Guild.  

The layoffs impact several local papers that serve as watchdogs for rural interests, regions and governments. Laying off staff at larger newspapers leaves fringe suburban and rural areas at risk of becoming news deserts. 

Affected newsrooms include the Bellingham Herald, The Olympian, Tacoma News Tribune and Tri-City Herald (Washington); Bradenton Herald (Florida); Centre Daily Times (Pennsylvania); Charlotte Observer (North Carolina); Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas); Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee and Sacramento Bee (California); Idaho Statesman (Idaho); Kansas City Star (Missouri and Kansas); Lexington Herald-Leader (Kentucky); Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald (Florida); and The State (South Carolina). 

“The departure of these talented reporters, visual journalists and writers will immediately leave gaping holes in local coverage for dozens of communities across the United States,” The News Guild writes. “They lost their jobs, cut by a company that should spend as much time figuring out how to use high-skilled employees as it does replacing their work with AI.” McClatchy, a subsidiary of the Chatham Asset Management hedge fund, launched a new A.I. "tool that can summarize articles and create different versions for different audiences" at the beginning of this year, Joe Sonka reported for Kentucky Public Radio.

The Idaho Statesman lost 10 of its 18 journalists, for example. The Lexington Herald-Leader, one of Kentucky’s two remaining statewide newspapers, laid off half of its staff, including its only environmental reporter for Eastern Kentucky. The cut leaves the paper with only two reporters who currently cover state and city government.

The State lost its only environmental reporter, who covered the entirety of South Carolina. The Centre Daily Times frequently reported stories that would become national headlines, as was the case with their coverage of Penn State's off-campus cocaine ring. After staff cuts, they were left with five reporters. 

What began as a newspaper editor's joke, became an international tourism draw for an 800-person Nevada town

Virginia City, Nevada, population 800, boasts a rich history of silver and gold mining that drew thousands to the town in the 1800s. But today, it's known more for something wholly unexpected in the American West: An annual weekend camel race. 

The town "looks like a film set of the Old West," reports Fil Corbitt for NPR's All Things Considered. "The sidewalks are wooden and the old storefronts are occupied by candy shops, souvenir emporiums and saloons. Off of the main street, at the base of a steep desert hill pocked with old mine shafts, dust whips through the fairgrounds." He asks Joe Hendricks, who owns the camels that will run the races, what it's like to ride them: "It feels like you're on a camel." 

Fair enough for a town whose history is likely more synonymous with riding horses. It's serious business in Virginia City, even if the origins of the races might not have been. It all began in the 1950s with editor of the local newspaper, Bob Richards, who "was nursing a hangover at The Delta Saloon," Corbitt reports. "He later recounted that he and the bartender were randomly joking about some nonexistent Labor Day camel races. When he went back to the paper, called the Territorial Enterprise, he found that he had space to fill and decided to write a joke story about the fictional race."

Such exaggerations were nothing new for the Enterprise, which, coincidentally, was the first place Samuel Clemens used his pen name, Mark Twain. Year after year, Richards would "recount" tales of the nonexistent camel races, and in 1960, the editor of the San Fransisco Chronicle upped the ante by offering to really bring the camels, and so, the Annual International Camel & Ostrich Races were born. 

This year marked the 67th running of the camels, and you can watch and read more about them from local TV news station, KOLO-8, and The Comstock Chronicle, the Enterprise's modern descendent.

New York family-owned, free weekly newspaper survives with hard-working owners, positivity, interaction with readers

    

(Cup Fabian Barra via Sunsplash)

Publisher Mark Frost does everything at The Chronicle in Glens Falls, NY, from writing stories and editorials, to delivering thousands of his free weekly to the racks. He probably would sweep the floor, too, if he could find it under the stacks of papers he has leafed through in his office, or if he could find the time. A photo of Frost in his office, among others, appears in a New York Times story by Erek Wimple, who uses The Chronicle as an example of how some locally-owned newspapers are refusing to die.

Wimple cites the stats: “Though nearly 3,500 newspapers have ceased publication since the mid-2000s, about 2,250 publications like The Chronicle” have held their own. “Large newspaper chains, the ones prone to consolidation, can’t be bothered with them.”

While The Chronicle hasn’t completely escaped potential demise — the pandemic nearly put it to bed — Frost says he has been able to rebound in part by staying connected with his readers. He engages with them when he fills the racks in places where readers, like they used to do in most small towns, stand in line waiting for the newspaper to arrive. Sometimes, however, he has to police the meaning of “free.” He tolerates a reader taking two or three to share with family and friends but when one customer grabbed a handful and told Frost he was “packing some glass,” Frost retrieved them.

Readership has retained its strength because of a focus on the readers, Wimple reports. Schools get heavy coverage, “along with town-hall meetings, local business happenings and, of course, parking.” Even more intensely local news has included such things a “the latest rattlesnake attack” or a “front-page feature on butchering a deer.”

Wimple describes some of the coverage as “boosterism,” noting the “sunny coverage” of restaurant openings as an example, and a tendency to either avoid the negative or move it deep inside the issue. “Our newspaper is more interested in who’s making progress than who’s screwing up,” Frost wrote in 2020. (Wimple researched more than 100 editions of The Chronicle for his report.)

The approach is not appreciated by more traditional journalists. Wimple cites one editor from The Post-Star in Baltimore, where Frost once worked, who said The Chronicle has lost credibility by cozying up to advertisers. But Frost countered that he has lost advertisers because of some coverage. And the paper’s politics are widely seen as middle of the road, or even unrecognizable.

The Chronicle may have a future, too. Frost is 75. He says there have been no offers to buy the paper. But Zander Frost, his 34-year-old son, has taken to the task, at least for now.

Opinion: Local newspapers' lawsuit against AI companies is a righteous battle against people stealing their work

Huge AI companies are stealing the work of others, especially news organizations, as they train their AI systems to make them more reliable -- and more valuable, Brier Dudley writes in an opinion piece for The Seattle Times. 

Dudley, who is editor of the Times' Free Press Initiative, writes: "It’s hard to keep track of everyone suing AI companies for stealing their work.Those gleaming AI platforms, the costliest computer systems ever built, are peddling more stolen goods than a seedy pawnshop."

But it's a June 24 lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft by a group of 35 publishers representing about 400 newspapers that has Dudley championing the need for journalists to stand up against these companies. This is just the latest lawsuit filed by news organizations against AI companies. The New York Times has spent nearly $30 million since 2023 on a copyright infringement lawsuit it filed. 

Dudley writes: "Even when AI companies began paying a few large papers and wire services, small papers were left out. Yet they are often providing their communities’ only local reporting, making their work valuable to companies purporting to be universal sources of current knowledge."

News organizations previously were hurt -- often unfairly -- by having their content taken by others in the digital world. Dudley hopes this time there will be a different result. 

He writes: "I’m glad to see these publishers fighting back. Perhaps they won’t get shafted like the previous generation was during the rise of search and social media."

Local News Day is April 9; it offers Americans opportunities to reconnect with the local news they trust

Thursday, April 9, is Local News Day across the USA.

Most Americans consider local media coverage to be their most important, trusted and reliable news source. On April 9, Local News Day will help millions of Americans in communities of all sizes reconnect with the local outlets they trust to provide coverage of recent events, hold leaders accountable and strengthen an overall sense of community. 

As part of the day, Rebuild Local News and the Online News Association will co-host “2026 State Policy Playbook for Newsrooms,” an online event for newsroom leaders and journalists offering a clear, practical overview of emerging policy models and guidance on how to engage policymakers effectively. Register here.

Local News Day also offers connection support and tools for nonprofit organizations and government offices that want to support their valued news resources. Local News Day will provide organizations with ready-to-use tools designed to engage communities and strengthen the trusted local news they rely on. Sign up by April 2.

Individuals looking to voice their support for the community strength local news provides can sign up for updates on Local News Day activities here. 

Community newspaper publishers voice frustration over USPS costs and delivery delays

Delayed newspapers can hurt a publisher's bottom line.
(Photo via NiemanLab)

U.S. Postal Service cost-cutting measures and process changes have slowed some local newspaper deliveries to a crawl, leaving frustrated local publishers searching for solutions, reports Sophie Culpepper of NiemanLab.

Smaller, more rural newspapers often use USPS because it is cheaper than hiring newspaper carriers; however, over the past decade, USPS has repeatedly raised postal rates even as its reliability decreased. Culpepper writes, "By the USPS’ own measurement, about 20% of periodicals were delivered late nationally between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2025, up from around 15% delivered late during the same period in 2024."

The Midcoast Villager in Maine is a community newspaper that is the "primary or only local news source for most of the 80,000 residents of Maine’s Knox and Waldo Counties," Culpepper writes. The Villager has tracked papers that are a week or more late. Delayed delivery can irritate readers, who may choose to drop their subscriptions. "Small local publishers can’t afford those losses, and they have little visibility into — or control over — the delays hurting their bottom lines."

The Villager's publisher, Willy Blackmore, shared his frustration with USPS in his 2025 editorial: "It bears mentioning that the Postal Service is just that, a service, and not a business that has historically had or needs a profit motive, but it is a service that the Villager spends over $49,000 on annually, and we decidedly are not getting what we pay for."

Rural papers in South Dakota are facing a similar struggle. David Bordewyk, the executive director of the South Dakota NewsMedia Association, told Culpepper, "I’m confident in telling you…100% of our newspapers are having problems with delivery."

In December, a National Newspaper Association delegation met with Postmaster General David Steiner, who used to be a paperboy, to discuss ongoing challenges and request a process for newspapers to enter into the Postal Service’s "delivery measurement system," which includes scans and barcodes that could track a newspaper from beginning to end.

In an update to NNA members, Matt Paxton, a publisher who attended the meeting with Steiner, wrote, "Postmaster General Steiner was attentive. But didn’t indicate that he plans to deviate at this time from the USPS’s Delivering for America Plan."

Quick hits: Yosemite's 'firefall' is coming; high school newsroom produces this town's paper; give blood before the storm; buying American

Yosemite's 'firefall' only happens once a year. 
(Photo by Leo Visions, Unsplash)

It's almost here, and it's not to be missed. "Every year from mid-to-late February, the setting sun hits Yosemite’s Horsetail Fall along the eastern edge of the soaring El Capitan at just the right angle, creating the illusion that the 1,575-foot waterfall is on fire," reports Lyndsey Matthews for Afar. This Yosemite National Park phenomenon, aka 'firefall,' is ultra-popular, and this year is expected to be even more crowded."

In rural Pulaski, Wisconsin, a high school newsroom has produced the area newspaper for the past 83 years. "Pulaski News remains the community’s primary news outlet, and high school students still staff the newsroom," reports Bob Sillick for Editor & Publisher. "Published every two weeks, Pulaski News is the product of Pulaski High School’s journalism course. . . The content of the 12- to 20-page newspaper is community-focused, sharing the information and news important to the local populace."

Americans who want to buy American-made goods may struggle to find them, but U.S. manufacturers are working to change that experience. "Right now, though, the Buy American movement faces stiff headwinds. Inflation has raised prices dramatically over the past five years, making cheap imports look all the more appealing," report Daniel de Visé and Veronica Bravo of USA Today. "Gallup polling suggests only about 40% of Americans consistently know where their toasters and T-shirts are made. . . American manufacturers want attitudes to change." USA Today includes a list of still-thriving U.S. manufacturers and where to find them.

Marty Durlin (Writers on the Range photo) 

For community journalists new to their rural community, covering local government may seem like an onerous evening beat. But as Marty Durlin shares, there's a lot to be learned from covering city councils in small-town America. "For the past year and a half, I’ve been reporting weekly on municipal government in three rural Western Colorado towns. . . .I’ve come to understand that the job of a council member is challenging and important. The task demands attention to detail and a grasp of everything from high finance and road repair to solutions for the unhoused. It’s also time-consuming and basically unpaid."  

Giving blood before a major weather event can
save lives. (Axios graphic)  

Milk, bread and blood are all in demand before blasts of snow, ice and bitterly cold temperatures hit the U.S. "The Red Cross said blood donations were already down 35% nationally in the past month and asked people to donate to boost the supply before the winter weather hits," reports April Rubin of Axios. "Extreme weather affected about 400 blood drives in December — more than three times the number during that same period in 2024."