It is not breaking news to report that local newspapers continue to die on a regular basis in America.  But the biggest news is this – the trend is continuing and getting worse.

A new study released by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University shows that our nation is losing two local newspapers per week. Since 2005, America has seen one-fourth of local newspapers stop publishing, with a large percentage of those weeklies.  According to the report, the current trend shows one-third of local newspapers will be gone by 2025.

“The lack of reliable local news compounds governance issues, making communities less efficient and prosperous,” according to a recent story posted on axios.com.

Here is more data from the report, as shown in the Axios story:

• The surviving newspapers are a fraction of their former size, and revenues and profits have significantly declined. In 2005, newspaper revenues topped $50 billion — compared to roughly $20 billion today.
• Newspaper employment has fallen by around 70% since 2006, with the most significant cuts (82%) in production and distribution. The number of editorial staffers in local newsrooms dropped 58%.

This demise of reliable, accurate local news reporting “has caught the attention of many nonprofits, community leaders and wealthy individuals,” according to Axios.  “But most communities that lost newspapers haven’t yet received a digital replacement.”

All this brought back some memories of my childhood.  My parents grew-up around Loogootee, Indiana, a city with a current population of around 2,500.  Loogootee is in Martin County and the entire county has a population of just over 10,000.

Our family visited Loogootee many times while growing up.  My father also had a subscription to the Loogootee Tribune, a weekly newspaper that started around the time of the American Civil War.

I was quite sad when learning of the Tribune’s closing.  Publisher at that time, Larry Hembree, published a final edition in March of 2019.

When beginning my radio broadcasting career in the early 1970s, I was named sports director of a small radio station in Johnson County.  My dad was so proud of me, he sent a message to the Tribune and the news of my promotion was carried on the front page of the next edition.

One of my dad’s brothers, who also grew up in Loogootee, wrote a lengthy letter to the paper, and the Tribune printed the whole thing, unedited.

It was that kind of weekly, filled with nothing but news about Loogootee and people with ties to Loogootee.

As a kid, I was an avid reader of all newspapers in our household and always read the entire Tribune front to back.  After all, I would almost always find a name of someone related to me.

Loogootee no longer has a newspaper and starting up any kind of news operations is difficult and expensive.  Based on that Northwestern University report, print media ad sales continue to decline while online ad revenue has remained relatively flat since 2017.  So, the prospect of ad revenue creating a profitable business is not promising.

I suppose that’s the reason so many people thank me for what I do.  As a retiree, I have the time to do the reporting, writing and podcasting, doing my best in covering local news on this blog.  If I were in business to make a profit, my prospects would be grim.

It is time to find a way to make local news profitable as a business.  I do not pretend to have any answers, but let’s get some heads together and figure this out.