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    JOURNALISM

    Commission on Local Newspapers Passes House Vote

    Concern for future of journalism grows as chains take over

    By

    An amendment to an economic development bill calling for a statewide commission to look at what’s happening to local newspapers passed the Mass. House of Representatives on July 28 and now awaits action by a conference committee. The state Senate’s version of the bill did not include the journalism commission amendment.

    The legislation was originally filed by Rep. Lori Ehrlich of Marblehead and Sen. Brendan Crighton of Lynn to “review all aspects of local journalism, including, but not limited to, the adequacy of press coverage of cities and towns” and to study “the impact of social media on local news, strategies to improve local news access, public policy solutions to improve the sustainability of local press business models and private and nonprofit solutions.”

    But the desperate plight of many local newspapers has already been well documented by scholars at the Pew Research Center, the University of North Carolina, and others. One study found that 1,800 U.S. communities had lost their local newspapers since 2004.

    “The problem has been here for a while and it is not going away,” said Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University’s College of Art, Media, and Design.

    The standard explanation for the sad state of local journalism is that the internet has killed it. But that argument doesn’t explain why a significant number of independently owned small newspapers — almost all of them weeklies — appear to be doing all right, with strong support from their local communities.

    Many local newspapers that have gone out of business were once thriving independents that were purchased by chain conglomerates. These chains, such as Gannett (formerly GateHouse) and Digital First Media, siphon off cash flow, lay off staff, outsource operations like design, production, and customer service, and sell off assets to produce outsize profits for investors, leaving little or nothing for the shrinking newsroom.

    Worth Robbins of Harvard, a small town west of Concord, knows first-hand how necessary local news is for his community. The Harvard Post, which the Independent’s founder launched in 1973, had once been the town’s most reliable source for local news. Then it was sold to Community Newspaper Company, which was sold to GateHouse. The Post decreased in quality until it ceased publication in 2013.

    “The paper was no longer by Harvard, for Harvard,” said Robbins.

    In 2006, Robbins and a group of partners decided to launch a new weekly, the Harvard Press, that would remind residents of what the Post had once been.

    The response was overwhelmingly positive. “People value accurate and comprehensive coverage,” Robbins said. “The picture for high-quality local news is improving. In the White House, they’re saying that the press is the enemy, but that is not falling on sympathetic ears. People here are saying, ‘No, we need that.’ ”

    Erika Brown, editor of the Manchester Cricket in Manchester-by-the-Sea, echoes Robbins’s sentiments on community building. “When a community doesn’t have a strong local paper, they are no longer bound together, and they become less informed,” Brown said. “Cities with no local newspaper have lower bond and credit ratings from banks, because they aren’t seen as trustworthy.”

    Brown purchased the Cricket in November 2018, when it was in a state of what she called “benign neglect.” There was no original reporting. Under her leadership, the paper had 27-percent growth in print subscriptions in the first year, and a 20-percent increase in 2020.

    Brown doesn’t plan to stray from the four towns on Cape Ann that the Cricket covers. “We need micro-newspapers that want to be micro-papers,” she said. “We can’t just have the Boston Globe. The stories that only local papers report on truly celebrate local life, and they are everywhere you look.”

    “Local papers give us a clear and shared set of facts that are the bedrock of civic life and discourse,” said Marblehead’s Rep. Ehrlich. “In addition, without a common narrative and understanding of the problems we face, solutions are elusive.”

    Although the internet has undoubtedly cut into newspapers’ advertising revenue, advertising and subscription-based business models have continued to be successful for many local newspapers. Robbins explained that the Harvard Press “reached out to the community and told them that we would not be able to survive without subscriptions.” Two-thirds of Harvard’s households now subscribe to the Press. The paper also has a large number of “sustaining subscribers,” who pay an additional amount to secure the Press’s future.

    Robbins is not hopeful about what the economic development bill might include for small independent newspapers, if the commission does come up with remedies. “I feel like the whole issue of whether government should help local news is kind of messed up,” he said. “A big part of the purpose of local news is to be the watchdog on government.”

    The newspaper did receive coronavirus disaster support that covered two months’ worth of payroll. Under the circumstances, Robbins said, “I’m happy we got that.”

    But Robbins would rather look to the community for support. “Although one nice thing happened for us this summer. The town picks someone as its ‘citizen of note,’ ” Robbins said. “They get mentioned in the town report. And this year, they picked us.”

     

    LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

    One Year and Counting

    By

    I received a nice note this evening from Sadie Hutchings, the Provincetown veterinarian (and our new “Animal Clinic” columnist).

    “I think you guys must have just had a birthday for your newspaper,” she wrote. “My 13-month-old daughter was featured in your ‘birth issue’ when she was a few weeks old, so Happy Birthday to the newspaper!”

    Dr. Hutchings is right. The birth of her daughter, Juniper, last July 21 was described on the front page of Volume 1, Number 1 of the Provincetown Independent, which appeared on Sept. 6, almost one year ago.

    That was our “preview edition,” actually. We didn’t start publishing weekly until October, so we’re going to wait until the end of this month to celebrate our first birthday and the beginning of Volume 2.

    What a year it has been.

    We knew we were embarking on a venture that most people considered risky, if not downright foolish. “They’re starting — yes, starting — a newspaper on the Cape” was the Boston Globe’s headline for its story about us.

    We didn’t know that six months into our first year we would face a global economic and health disaster that would hobble the business community at the precise time of the year when we had projected our business would start to take off. Like almost everyone else, we had to learn to do our work in new ways and rally our young team remotely.

    Sometimes it felt as if we could barely go on.

    But here we are, still here, and getting stronger, with a growing subscription and advertiser list and an all-star cast of contributors. In spite of the headwinds, and the grievous condition of big chunks of the newspaper landscape, we were sure that a lively, readable, risk-taking paper would find a loyal audience here. We still think so.

    More and more people are worried about the future of journalism, including a majority of the Mass. House of Representatives (see Allyson Birger’s story on page A9). The House voted recently to create a commission to find out what’s gone wrong and see if the government can help shore up local newspapers. Many people say there needs to be a new “business model” for community journalism, perhaps including some kind of government support.

    We’re glad that our legislators think newspapers are important. But we agree with Worth Robbins, a founder of the weekly Harvard Press, who says, “Newspapers should keep government at arm’s length.” Our job, after all, is to blow the whistle when government goes out of bounds.

    We’re all for new business models, but we also believe in the value of time-tested principles. Local papers have survived hard times again and again by serving their readers well and earning their support. It doesn’t take a state-sponsored commission to see that.

     

    LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

    Young Reporters Wanted

    By

    In our weekly marathon of trying to keep up with what’s going on in town halls and virtual committee meetings about schools and budgets, health and housing, we stop now and then to talk about the future of community journalism. We can’t be sure what it will look like, but this summer we’ve gotten some glimpses that have given us hope. A group of young writers who worked with us this summer has reminded us that every generation has new stories to tell. And not just their own, but the stories of their towns and schools, their past and future, and the world beyond. They reminded us why we never did buy the idea that local newspapers are done for.

    It’s true they are endangered. Richard M. Cohen puts his finger on the main reason why in his essay on page C7 this week: the consolidation of ownership and the resulting greed-driven gutting of quality and loss of readers’ trust.

    The Pew Research Center reports that the number of newsroom jobs at U.S. newspapers dropped by 51 percent from 2008 to 2019. There won’t be any community newspapers left without a new generation of writers, artists, editors, and designers needed to produce them. If the critically important work of reporting is to have a future, we need young people to learn how to do it.

    We’ve made that part of our mission at the Independent, and you’ll find evidence of our efforts in Young Voices, section B of this week’s edition. We recruited six middle and high school writers and paired them with our summer journalism fellows to research and write stories over the last five weeks.

    The students pitched their ideas, and everyone worked on making them better. Strikingly, they wanted to write about things we easily agreed were important: how grandparents and grandchildren are staying connected through this pandemic; how local nonprofit groups are faring; how Outer Cape middle school students decide which high school to go to; what’s behind the most famous local legends, and why the candy store on Main Street had to close. Their perspectives on these subjects were fresh and surprising.

    The frustrations of working remotely made everything about this first experiment in creating a summer program for young journalists more difficult, but the results make us proud of all that was accomplished and eager to do more.

    Our friend Louis Black, who started the Austin Chronicle almost 40 years ago and encouraged us to launch the Independent, says, “We’re too old to be doing this, but the young people don’t know how, and we have to show them.” He’s right, but there’s also a lot that the young people have to show us.

     

    THE YEAR-ROUNDER

    What Makes a Story Important?

    Just one of the hard questions local journalists must ask

    By

    Look at what you are holding in your hands (or reading online). It is the creation of a group of people dedicated to bringing you the stories of the Outer Cape. It is local journalism, of and by the people who actually live here.

    That’s a rare thing, and getting rarer, shrinking like a pitiful Arctic iceberg on this hot summer day. More than 65 million Americans have access to at most one local newspaper and many to none at all. Consider this: over half of all U.S. print newsroom jobs were lost between 2008 and last year — before the pandemic descended.

    Perhaps, as with many aspects of our lives, you never bothered to think about how something like a weekly newspaper is put together. Think about it now: out of the whole cloth of everything going on is fashioned a version as close as possible to reality — admittedly, a version of reality.

    Think about the challenges of this enterprise: how to prioritize events and happenings, what is newsworthy, when is it too late to tell a story, when is it premature? What will be helpful and what may in fact be harmful?

    Think of your own life: What if I asked you to sum up your situation? Where would you start? At the beginning, or the end? How will your story affect those around you? Are you even the best judge of what is important about your “one wild and precious life,” as Mary Oliver put it. Now multiply your story to include your family, your community, your region — the world.

    I was present at the birthing session of an edition of this newspaper back before social distancing. About a dozen people were sitting or standing about a long table, women and men of all ages; they were variously paying attention to each other and to their screens, laptops, and phones (and eating rye bread and drinking tea), facing a whiteboard festooned with columns, lists, ideas, categories. Someone (the editor) directs the interaction with this board, pitching ideas, questioning details, assigning people to tasks.

    But there is more. He asks: What makes a story important? What are the details that reveal it? Where did this all come from and where does it fit in? This kind of reporting is not easy. The mortals in this room make the attempt with humility and some semblance of self-knowledge and a heap of good humor.

    I don’t really know what is important and what is not. I am not fully aware of the connection between my life and the events around me. I can’t judge, from my relatively cloistered and self-centered existence, what the next Big Thing will be. I would just as soon be left alone, but there is a part of me that realizes that I must connect to events that may or not be momentous. Just as I rely on the farmer to grow my food, and the police officer to protect me, I look to my local journalist to help me make sense of my life, its context, and the world around me.

    That does not mean I agree with the journalist’s every word. I will rage or fulminate when I think they have the story just a bit wrong. But I appreciate them when they turn over a stone formerly lodged, or explain an issue that I did not fully understand. I am happy to hear of a baby newborn, and grateful to read stories of those citizens who have passed on — in some ways the only true news. I am glad that we are not one of those places without a real local newspaper.

    Like most poets and artists, these people are not reaping huge (or even adequate) monetary rewards, but they are providing a service that not only enhances my life but, I am realizing as I look at our nation’s loss of journalists, may be essential to keeping me free.

    LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

    News That’s Fit to Print

    By

    Last week, Publisher Teresa Parker wrote about the financial challenge of launching and sustaining a high-quality newspaper without sufficient start-up capital, and then finding ourselves smack in the middle of an economic meltdown precipitated by a plague.

    That column generated many responses from readers, almost all heartfelt and bracing — including several offers of additional funding. Not yet enough to relieve all our worries, but enough to keep us trying for the rest.

    It also produced lots of advice and questions, including one we hear often: Why not just go completely digital? Wouldn’t that cut costs drastically, with no need to print and mail the Independent?

    Well, no, actually. Printing and delivering the paper to the post office and to newsstands is not that expensive. It represents only about 10 percent of our costs. And there are low postage rates for newspapers mailed in-county, where most of our subscribers live. (Our summer fellow Cana Tagawa explained this in her July 2 article about the role of the Postal Service in preserving democracy).

    What’s expensive is researching, writing, photographing, drawing, and editing the news and features that make the Independent worth reading. The biggest chunk of money goes to paying people; going all-digital wouldn’t save anything there.

    It might also hurt us in the subscription department. Eighty-seven percent of our subscribers get the print edition; just 13 percent, almost all of them out of state, get the digital only. Would all of those readers who like paper switch to online? Maybe.

    What is certain is that our advertising income would tank. Why? Because there is virtually no money in selling digital advertising — not for us, and not for any other newspaper in America.

    Professor Iris Chyi at the University of Texas School of Journalism has been studying newspaper economics for 20 years. “There is no digital revenue prospect that could support a real news organization,” she says. Even the New York Times, with its massively successful online presence, still generates most of its revenue from print.

    The reasons for this aren’t hard to see. A small local paper like ours can’t compete online with Google and Facebook. And online ads are often intrusive and obnoxious; print ads almost never are. Print ads don’t interrupt your experience of reading the way digital ads do. Print ads are friendly.

    But isn’t digital the future of everything? No, says Professor Chyi. Her research shows that readers — including younger people — increasingly prefer reading print over digital text.

    Finding the right strategy for restoring community journalism remains a challenge. But one thing we won’t be doing is stopping the presses.

    LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

    It’s Not a Moonshot

    Shipwreck or springboard?

    By

    We went to press with our first weekly issue on Oct. 7, 2019, a little over nine months ago. Our business plan said we needed $375,000 in the bank.We had raised less than half that, so we knew we were taking a great big risk. But we felt we had two good reasons to go forward.

    First, we had watched GateHouse Media lay off the last reporter at the Provincetown Banner. Second, we thought that if we could produce a truly high-quality newspaper, the kind of paper this amazing place deserved, the rest of the necessary start-up capital would follow. That hasn’t happened.

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