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."

Journalists at rural Alaska newspapers quit over abrupt corporate edits to Kirk story that upset a state politician

Photo by Mark Sabbatini, Juneau Independent

Four journalists resigned from newspapers in rural Alaska after the publications’ corporate owner made "significant edits to an article about Charlie Kirk’s death, appearing to yield to pressure from a Republican state lawmaker who had criticized the coverage," reports Neil Vigdor of The New York Times.

The journalists who worked for The Homer News, The Peninsula Clarion and The Juneau Empire, were all employed by Alabama-based Carpenter Media. The news staff issued a joint resignation letter, noting that they had not been consulted about the edits, and that without editorial independence, the company's integrity as a news source was compromised.

The story at issue "chronicled a Sept. 17 vigil in Homer, Alaska, for Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder and a right-wing ally of President Trump’s who was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University," Vigdor writes. In its second paragraph, the story "described Kirk as a a 'Christian-Nationalist icon' and defender of 'often racist and controversial views.'"

One of the vigil's organizers, Sarah Vance, a Republican state representative, took issue with the description of Kirk and wrote to the paper's corporate owners and "suggested that advertisers were planning to boycott the publications," Vigdor adds. The story then disappeared from online, only to reappear with numerous edits a few hours later.

In a statement, Carpenter Media Group said it altered the story because it did not meet company standards. Gregory Knight, an aide to Vance, "provided a statement from Vance saying that she did not expect her complaint to contribute to the resignations," Vigdor reports.

Illinois publisher closes newspapers in five states, leaving some towns as 'news deserts'

The Brookings Register was the area's last local news source. 

Update: "Recently shuttered newspapers across Wyoming and South Dakota are set to publish again, after buyers stepped up within days to prevent the rural communities from becoming 'news deserts,' where little or no local media remains," reports Sarah Raza of The Associated Press. 

As of last week, 31 communities in the Midwest and the West no longer have a newspaper. "News Media Corp., which owns local newspapers across five states, said it will close 14 operations in Wyoming, seven in Illinois, five in Arizona, four in South Dakota and one in Nebraska," report Sarah Raza and Jack Dura of The Associated Press.

While newspapers have closed all around the United States, when a rural area loses its only local news source, the void is unlikely to be replaced by another paper or online publication. "The U.S. has lost over one-third of its print newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2004," Raza and Dura explain. "NMC’s closure affects longtime newspapers that were often the primary source of news in numerous small towns, worsening the problem of news deserts in rural areas."

The company's CEO, J.J. Tompkins, listed the current financial woes of the news industry alongside a failed bid to sell the company as the reason for the sudden closures. "Hundreds of employees were terminated immediately, and Tompkins wrote that the company will make 'reasonable efforts to pay you all remaining compensation you have earned,'" Raza and Dura write. Even upper management at many of the papers told AP they did not see the closure coming.

The Brookings Register in South Dakota was the town's last news source. The town's mayor said "the closure of his town’s newspaper 'absolutely' leaves a big hole in the community," AP reports. "He liked the newspaper’s commentary for fostering conversations. The reporters did a great job telling readers what was going on in Brookings, a city of about 25,000 people." 

Analysis: Local newspapers survive or close for different reasons

Local news can help residents hold elected officials 
accountable. (Photo by J. Mone, AP via Converation CC)

Beginning around 2005, community newspapers across the U.S. faced unprecedented financial stresses, which over time forced more than a third to close. While their closures have left communities in vulnerable "news deserts," they aren't random. Instead, the reasons smaller newspapers often close fall into a recognizable pattern. In her piece for The Conversation, Abby Youran Qin "identifies key drivers − ranging from racial disparity to market forces − that determine which towns lose their papers and which ones beat the odds."

Although local papers exist to serve their communities, they still need profits to keep the doors open. That is why some neighborhoods still have a paper. Qin explains, "Local newspapers survive where affluent subscribers and deep-pocketed advertisers cluster. That means wealthy white suburbs keep their watchdogs, while low-income and diverse communities lose theirs."

When poorer neighborhoods lose their paper and their investigative reporters, residents become more vulnerable to social power abuse. Qin writes, "Poor and racially diverse communities often face the harshest policing and interact more with street-level bureaucrats than wealthier citizens. That makes them more vulnerable to government corruption and misconduct."

Community newspapers often fail to serve their entire audience in equal ways. For instance, if everyone who worked at a local paper was white, would black events and happenings be equally covered? Over time, a pattern of bias in some news organizations caused racially diverse neighborhoods to distrust, dislike and not subscribe to the local paper.

"Diverse neighborhoods get hit twice. First, their local papers inadequately represent them," Qin explains. "Then, when people understandably turn away, subscriptions drop, advertisers pull back and the outlets shut down, leaving whole communities without a voice."

The structure of "market-dependent journalism," has also caused community newspapers to close, even when an area's population is growing. "The catch lies in who is moving in: Population growth saves papers only when it comes with wealth," Qin writes. "The news gap experienced by fast-growing communities may persist where local journalism depends primarily on traditional advertising and subscription revenues rather than diversified revenue sources such as grants and philanthropic donations."

Smaller newspapers are more likely to survive together. "In an era of decline, my analyses reveal a counterintuitive truth: Your town’s paper actually has better odds when nearby communities keep theirs," Qin adds. "Resilient local journalism clusters together. . . .When regional businesses support multiple outlets, the entire news ecosystem becomes more sustainable."

Letting go of partisan slants can help a community paper survive. "It turns out that there’s no significant link between a county’s partisan makeup and its ability to keep newspapers," Qin writes. Large subscribing bases and corporate advertisers often keep bigger newspapers afloat. Party affiliation isn't what drives their revenue.

Choosing to push politics left or right doesn't serve a local paper's interests. Qin explains, "But local journalism’s survival hinges on practical factors such as money and market size. Saving local news isn’t a left vs. right debate − it’s a community issue that requires nonpartisan solutions."

Kansas police chief expected to be charged for his role in controversial raid on community newspaper

A police chief who led the controversial raid on a Kansas community newspaper will face a charge of obstructing justice, according to a report by John Hanna of The Associated Press.

Two prosecutors had been investigating the raid at the request of the state attorney general, and they released a report Monday outlining the police chief’s alleged misconduct.

According to Hanna, “Prosecutors Marc Bennett and Barry Wilkerson concluded in their 124-page report that the staff at the Marion County Record committed no crimes before former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody led a raid on its offices and the home of its publisher. They said police warrants signed by a judge to allow the searches contained inaccurate information from an ‘inadequate investigation’ and that the searches were not legally justified.”

The AP reported that, “Police body camera footage of the 2023 raid on Publisher Eric Meyer’s home shows his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, visibly upset and telling officers, ‘Get out of my house!’ She co-owned the paper, lived with her son and died of a heart attack the next afternoon.”

Hanna wrote, “Prosecutors . . . allege Cody obstructed an official judicial process in the weeks after the raid. He resigned as chief last October.”

Eric Meyer, who will be honored on Oct. 10 at the Institute for Rural Journalism’s Al Smith Awards Dinner in Lexington, Ky., told the AP that “he’s grateful prosecutors found that the newspaper’s staff committed no crimes, though he questioned why it took them a full year. He also expressed frustration that Cody is the only official expected to face criminal prosecution.

“The newspaper’s parent company, Meyer and three current or former staffers have filed federal lawsuits against the city of Marion and current and former local officials, including Cody,” Hanna reported.

A look at how a local newspaper in Pennsylvania covered Trump's rally and the attempted assassination

When Donald Trump went to Butler to deliver his election message to the state's western supporters, journalists from the local newspaper, the Butler Eagle, were prepared to cover a political rally, but they ended up reporting on a shocking attempted assassination.

Covering a national event with a small newspaper's resources is a tall order for any newsgroup, and journalists at The Associated Press wondered how the Eagle would manage the reporting and scrutiny. To discover how it all went down at the Eagle, AP photographer Matt Slocum, media reporter David Bauder and video journalist Joe Frederick traveled to Butler to interview the paper's journalists, managers and staff. AP's perspective looks at a tragic event in a small town through the eyes of the local newspaper working to cover it. 

When AP explored the Eagle's newsroom responses, another story came to light. "It revealed not only the news organization’s professionalism but the emotional toll the story was taking on young staffers," AP reports. "One was moved to tears as she recounted how the crowd turned on her after the shooting. But, she said, the story taught her that in being a journalist, she had made the right choice."

AP's approach "enabled them to interlock strong human stories and look at the American local news industry as a whole. Particularly noteworthy was how this story managed the 'ladder of abstraction' and represented a strong crossover story that could appeal to multiple audiences — those looking for political news, local news, media news and simply a human story about the faces behind the journalism," AP reports. "The story offered a compelling on-the-ground tale that also linked it up with the struggles that newspapers and local news are having."

To dig into this coverage, watch the video here.

Uvalde Leader-News publisher receives 2023 Tom and Pat Gish Award at Texas event focusing on local journalism

Craig Garnett, middle, accepts the Tom and Pat Gish Award alongside Al Cross, left, and Benjy Hamm from the Institute for Rural Journalism. (Texas Center for Community Journalism photo)

The Uvalde Leader-News owner and publisher Craig Garnett accepted the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism on Feb. 29 during a Texas Center for Community Journalism event, which included panel discussions on community reporting needs and challenges. The Community News in Aledo editor and publisher Randy Keck and the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism director Benjy Hamm participated in leading the discussions alongside Garnett.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues first announced Garnett as honoree in 2023. The annual award is named for the couple who published the Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky, for more than 50 years.

Garnett was unable to attend the original award ceremony, set last October in Lexington, and offered remarks by video. “What happened in Uvalde was crushing. It continues to be an enormous weight on many of our shoulders, especially the families of the victims, and we have endeavored to cover every aspect of that shooting,” Garnett said at the time.

Garnett, who earned an economics degree from Southern Methodist University, joined the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1977 and moved to the Kansas City Star in 1978. He became general manager of the Leader-News in 1982 and owner and publisher in 1989.

The newspaper has won many awards under his ownership. Earlier in 2023, the Texas Press Association honored Garnett with the Frank W. Mayborn Award for Community Leadership. He has won dozens of TPA and South Texas Press Association awards for editorial and column writing.

The Institute for Rural Journalism exists to sustain rural journalism and help rural journalists define the public agenda in their communities.

The Institute for Rural Journalism thrives at the University of Kentucky; its outreach is for rural news nationwide

Benjy Hamm

Twenty years ago, some forward-thinking journalists began discussing the future of news in rural America. One of the more vibrant and committed conversations would take center stage at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues was created and thrives, with a continuing passion for helping "journalism work in rural areas and to provide training and other resources for small news organizations," reports Bob Miller for Editor & Publisher magazine.

Benjy Hamm serves as the new director of the IRJCI, succeeding Al Cross, who had spent 20 years developing the Institute's foundations. Hamm told Miller: "We have a mission that spreads across the country. The people who developed it at the time were well ahead of the curve and anticipated where we are today. They were interested in supporting and sustaining rural journalists and rural communities because of concerns about how things were going in those communities for local newspapers. Local newspapers were the only local news and information source in many areas."

In July 2023, The Institute's summit hosted live
and remote participants from across the country.

IRJ has hosted three national rural journalism summits, bringing reporters, editors, stakeholders and philanthropy representatives together to focus on problem-solving and share success stories while promoting a sense of community for people who are often hundreds of miles from each other.

Craig Garnett

The Institute also honors the courage, tenacity and integrity needed to do important reporting in rural communities through the Tom and Pat Gish Award. This year's award is going to Craig Garnett, the publisher of the Uvalde Leader-News newspaper in Uvalde, Texas. "The rural newspaper pushed for answers in the wake of the mass shooting at Uvalde Elementary School," Miller reports. "Hamm said the award recognizes that investigative and watchdog journalism can be more difficult in smaller communities where resources are spread thinner and the journalists may have to hold to account the very community members they see and interact with."

Why focus on rural journalism? Hamm told Miller: "One of the main reasons for that, historically and what led to the origin of the Institute, was the belief that there's a lot of great work being done in rural communities, but they don't always have the same support staff. They don't always have the same training opportunities, and they don't always have the same issues that are taking place in larger cities. So, for example, agriculture is huge in many rural communities in Eastern Kentucky and Western Kentucky."

Erika Engstrom

The Institute benefits from UK's vital campus and a growing School of Journalism. Miller writes, "Of the 30,000 students on campus, 719 are enrolled in journalism classes. That's larger than many small towns dotted across America. Of those, 204 are majors or pre-majors in the journalism program. . . ." Dr. Erika Engstrom, director of the School of Journalism and Media in the College of Communication and Information, told Miller that some of the program's entry-level courses have exceeded capacity.

While many news organizations across the nation have suffered setbacks and financial woes, the future for rural journalism is full of challenges and opportunities. Hamm told Miller: "With the state of local news and just how many of these smaller newspapers have gone out of business, that's one of the main reasons we're creating a new emphasis on helping us sustain the journalism in these communities. We work with newspapers, radio and online news sites, but it's still true that, in most rural communities, the primary if not the only source of independent news coverage is a newspaper."