Heads up, everyone. National Newspaper Week runs Oct. 1 through 7. News Engagement Day is Oct. 3. International Newspaper Carrier Day is Oct. 7.

I suspect few people will notice these events. That lack of awareness is unfortunate. These three observances are supposed to call attention to how news organizations have served—and should continue to serve—local communities and American society.

Each October since 1940, the Newspaper Association Managers (NAM) has sponsored a weeklong promotion of the newspaper industry in the United States and Canada. The 2023 National Newspaper Week theme is “Print. Online. For You. #Newspapers Your Way.” NAM encourages publishers to run ads and write stories or editorials during the week to highlight the importance of newspapers to the communities they serve.

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) launched News Engagement Day in October 2014. The day promotes a range of activities to encourage everyone—but especially high school and college students—to read, watch, like, tweet, post, listen to, or comment on news, and learn news reporting principles.

Paula Poindexter, the 2013-2014 AEJMC president, originally proposed the special day in Millennials, News, and Social Media: Is News Engagement a Thing of the Past? Poindexter, a pioneer in civic-duty-to-keep-informed research (see Sept. 9 post), wanted to counter the public’s declining attention to news, lack of understanding about journalism, and waning trust in the news media. She was convinced that declining news consumption was unhealthy for American democracy.

An adjunct to National Newspaper Week, International Newspaper Carrier Day salutes the many individuals who deliver the news to American homes and businesses each week. The News/Media Alliance produces ads to thank newspaper carriers during National Newspaper Week and on International Newspaper Carrier Day. Without news carriers, many people would not receive the news.

These events were important to me

When I was a newspaper carrier from 1964 to 1972 (The Herald, a neighborhood weekly in Columbus, Ohio; Upper Arlington News, a weekly in suburban Columbus; and the Columbus Citizen-Journal, a morning daily), I truly appreciated International Newspaper Carrier Day. Annual messages in each publication about the importance of newspaper carriers reinforced my belief that my delivery work was significant. I was part of the Fourth Estate, if in only a tiny way. I was helping keep people informed about the issues of the day.

Many people I served apparently were eager to get that information. On my Citizen-Journal route, people often met me at the door each morning to receive their copies and expressed their displeasure whenever I arrived after 6 a.m. Reading the newspaper was an important part of their daily routine. I would disrupt their schedule whenever I didn’t deliver on time.

All three newspapers I delivered, by the way, no longer exist.

As publisher of the weekly Sellersburg Star in Indiana from 1980 to 1982, I looked forward to National Newspaper Week each October. The special week gave me an excuse to write about the Star’s dedication to serving the West Clark County community; keeping readers informed about actions by the Sellersburg town government and West Clark Community School Corporation; and telling stories about residents of four communities: Borden, Henryville, Memphis, and Sellersburg.

Newspaper Week provided an opportunity as well to sell spots on a full-page cooperative ad about the value of newspapers to businesses that otherwise didn’t buy space in the Star. Businesspeople thought that newspapers in general were important but that advertising regularly in the Star wasn’t. “Everybody knows we’re here,” they used to tell me and my ad salespeople.

I had to close the Star in August 1982 during the economic recession at the time. Many long-established locally owned Sellersburg businesses closed during that time as well. While everybody may have known they were there, those establishments had trouble competing with chain stores in a regional mall just nine miles down the interstate highway that ran through town.

The newspaper business model has changed

The newspaper business today is nothing like what I experienced. The internet and social networks have disrupted the advertising-based business model I followed—especially for daily publications. Most “newspapers” today deliver information online as well as on paper. Daily publications now rely on subscribers, not advertising, for more than half their revenue.

But readership has slipped—especially for print editions. Pew Research reports that daily newspaper circulation of print editions in the United States fell from 63 million in the 1970s and 1980s to 24 million in 2020. Monthly visits to daily newspaper websites averaged slightly less than 14 million in 2020. Online readers, therefore, don’t make up for lost print readers. The decline in reach has limited what publishers can now charge for ads.

Most weeklies continue to generate much of their revenue—as I did at the Star—from local businesses that buy advertising space—on websites as well as on pages. But as happened in Sellersburg in the 1980s, current economic conditions have reduced what many businesses can spend on advertising.

Furthermore, other online channels can deliver information faster than print publications and offer cheaper, more targeted ways to advertise products and services. Free services like Craigslist have eliminated the demand for classified ads in many markets and removed a key revenue source for newspapers—especially community weeklies. Government officials in some states have worked to change laws that required government agencies to buy ad space in local newspapers for public notices, another once-reliable revenue source.

At the same time, operating costs—labor, production, printing, and distribution—continue to rise. Rising costs and declining revenues have squeezed publishers—especially those of small local newspapers—for years. Even those most dedicated to community service have had to cut back on the news they can provide.

Moreover, many readers have come to expect “news” to come free on their phones. Those folks don’t feel the need to pay for gathering that information. They don’t seem to realize that someone needs to seek out and report the news they see. Reporters don’t—and should not—work for free.

Many young adults have little-to-no experience with ink-on-paper newspapers, either. During my 13 years at Virginia Tech (2010 to 2023), I rarely found a student who reported looking at a printed publication for news. (I asked about news consumption in every undergraduate course.)

The odds of those reports changing are even more remote today. Forty-two of the nation’s largest 100 papers—which all once published multiple editions seven days a week—now produce a print edition six or fewer times a week, the 2022 State of Local News report from Northwestern University said. Eleven publish a print edition only once or twice a week and e-editions on other days.

Newspaper closures leave “news deserts”

Furthermore, the number of newspapers in the United States (both daily and weekly) has fallen from nearly 9,000 in 2004 to about 7,000 today. The 2022 report from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communication said that, on average, two newspapers close in the United States each week.

“Seventy million people live in the more than 200 counties without a newspaper, or in the 1,630 counties with only one paper—usually a weekly—covering multiple communities spread over a vast area,” the 2022 Northwestern report said.

Areas with no reporters regularly covering local happenings are called “news deserts.”

The 2022 State of Local News report said: “The loss of local journalism has been accompanied by the malignant spread of misinformation and disinformation, political polarization, eroding trust in media, and a yawning digital and economic divide among citizens. In communities without a credible source of local news, voter participation declines, corruption in both government and business increases, and local residents end up paying more in taxes and at checkout. This is a crisis for our democracy and our society.”

People miss local news

Often communities don’t realize how much they count on their local publication until it suspends operation.

In July, the Associated Press reported what happened in Welch, West Virginia, after its 100-year-old weekly newspaper closed:

“Residents suddenly have no way of knowing what’s going on at public meetings, which are not televised, nor are minutes or recordings posted online. Even basic tasks, like finding out about church happenings, have become challenging. The paper printed pages of religious events and directories every week and that hasn’t been replaced.

“Local crises, like the desperately needed upgrade of water and sewer systems, are going unreported. And there is no one to keep disinformation in check, like when the newspaper published a series of stories that dispelled the rumors of election tampering at local precincts during last year’s May primaries.”

Economically struggling and traditionally underserved communities have been the most likely to lose a news organization, the Northwestern report said. That loss of local reporting has exacerbated political, cultural, and economic divisions between and within communities. Residents need journalists to monitor local government and business activities.

Editor & Publisher, a newspaper trade publication, reported Sept. 25 that community leaders in Bedford County, Tennessee, quickly worked to replace their community newspaper when the 149-year-old Shelbyville Times-Gazette closed in July. Chris White, Bedford County’s director of planning; Greg Vick, District 2 county commissioner; and Curt Cobb, county clerk, talked about the value of local journalism and how it affected people and public policy.

With the encouragement of Bedford County leaders, Morristown, Tennessee-based Lakeway Publishers announced in early August that it would start two publications — The Bedford County Post and The Marshall County Post — to cover Shelbyville and Lewisburg, Tennessee.

Industry faces challenge

How to get civic and business information to people in other communities that have lost local news operations is one major challenge facing the newspaper industry as we observe National Newspaper Week, News Engagement Day, and International News Carrier Day in 2023.

Recent legislative, philanthropic, university, and industry initiatives have identified a range of options. According to the 2022 Northwestern report, they include public funding of local news, joint reporting ventures by local news operations, and new nonprofit and hybrid business models.

Communication theorist Marshall McLuhan once said, “People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.” I doubt that many news consumers today experience the alerts they receive on their phones the same way. But as the 2023 National Newspaper Week theme indicates, many people can now get news the way they want.

Let’s hope the industry finds a way to broaden its reach—especially for local news—and regain the relevance it had when I worked in newspapers 40 years ago. If it doesn’t, the 2022 Northwestern report said, local news may be available only in affluent and growing communities, where residents can afford to pay for it. We need to avoid that outcome.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon