Every summer, I see a man that does sports officiating in high school & small college football & basketball throughout central and southern Illinois.  When I last saw him in 2018, all he wanted to talk about was how so many local newspapers had folded where he referees, and how hard it is to find stories about local sporting events.

What has been happening in Illinois has also been happening in Indiana.  There are fewer newspapers and the surviving dailies have trimmed-back their staffing levels.

The state’s largest newspaper, the Indianapolis Star, is a shadow of its former self.  The remaining reporters and editors work hard and do very good work under trying circumstances.

I am not the only one worried about this development.  Randall Shepherd, retired chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, wrote a piece for the February 8th edition of the Indianapolis Business Journal’s “Forefront” opinion insert.  Justice Shepherd is very worried about the state of journalism around the Hoosier state.

Shepherd points to digital operations as reasons for hope. But my blog and podcast series are volunteer efforts.  Commercial success is hard to come by in this business.

But there are other institutions, such as public television and radio, that are growing journalists, using a model of funding the news operation through public broadcasting memberships from the general public.  However, these operations also depend heavily on foundation grants to remain viable.

We have some outstanding local foundations, such as the Lilly Endowment and the Fairbanks Foundation, that have chipped-in big-time to fund local public broadcasting journalism.  But we need to be real about this trend, because foundations over a period of time change the emphasis of giving and sometimes turn their money elsewhere.

I keep hearing and reading that there is an appetite among the public for news. particularly local news.  The statistics for my news blog and podcast series bear that out.

The sticking point is that no one has figured-out how to monetize (make money)  from the news content.  I see more operations going to a subscription model, where you pay a monthly fee to access more than a few pieces of content per month.  The Washington Post and New York Times have had success with this model on the national level, and a sports Web site, The Athletic, has high-quality sports writing, and you pay a monthly fee to access it.

I have resisted the temptation to charge people a monthly fee for access to my news content and will continue to do so.  I want anyone wanting to read this blog to have access to it.  But keep in mind this is a volunteer activity for me and I’m not getting any younger.  No one else has offered to join the local volunteer news blogging ranks in Fishers.

So, journalism needs to be alive at the local level.  I agree with the retired chief justice that Indiana needs more local news….the key is how it all gets paid-for.

You can read Randall Shepherd’s piece at this link, but you may be limited if you are not an IBJ subscriber (another news outlet charging for more than a little online content, and doing so successfully so far).