Conclusion
This report sheds light on a key segment of the newspaper industry that all too often gets overlooked in wider conversations and analysis: small-market newspapers.
While some of the results from this indicative survey correlate with what we know about the newspaper industry as a whole—long work hours, decreased newsrooms, an increased focus on digital output—other results offer a different perspective.
For example, our respondents suggested that working hours for most newsroom employees have remained relatively consistent over the past two years. This finding surprised us, given the reality of smaller newsrooms and the pressure to produce more stories. Similarly, we learned that despite the apparent “doom and gloom” around the wider newspaper industry, more people feel secure in their jobs than might be expected.
We also learned how newsroom staff, specifically reporters and editors, make use of digital tools, how they learn about new technologies, and how they develop digital skillsets. Much of this is through reading the industry press and self-learning. There may be an opportunity here to help bridge this gap through more formal support mechanisms.
Alongside this, we also heard about how recruiting and retaining young journalistic talent is a significant challenge. This may become a demographic time bomb for the industry if issues of pay, workload, and career development are not addressed in the future.
Despite this key challenge—and the ever-present issues of being short on time and money—a major takeaway from this survey is the level of optimism at small-market newspapers. This mirrors a similar sense of hope that we encountered during the qualitative interviews with local journalists and editors we conducted in late 2016.
A commitment to localism, local news, and their communities, coupled with a slower rate of change than is happening in major metro markets, has allowed many smaller newspapers to emerge in better health their larger cousins.
Smaller-market newspapers can also benefit from sometimes being the only source of original reporting in a community. This, along with the longevity that many publications have already enjoyed, can help many outlets hold on to and even reaffirm valuable, long-term relationships with readers, community leaders, and advertisers. These are the finer details that we can easily miss if we consider the newspaper industry as a monolithic sector that ebbs and flows at the same pace.
Our research joins other recent reports focusing on specific local newsrooms and news ecologies across the country such as those by the Local News Lab in New Jersey,60 the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media in North Carolina,61 and the Duke Reporters’ Lab.62
Our results encourage us to more effectively nuance the conversation about the crisis of journalism and the death of newspapers. Of course, there are economic concerns for small-market newspapers, and respondents were not shy about sharing those. But there are other stories to be told, too.
We hope that this survey and its results will help kick-start a renewed focus on small-market newspapers among industry watchers and researchers. This conversation should not overlook the very real challenges being faced at all levels of this industry; however, at the same time it must also celebrate the opportunities and successes present within this still vitally important news medium.