Newspaper forum reinforces key service provided by local journalism

Community journalism has a rich history, but the present business model has its issues.

Yet the future of local news coverage across America isn't lacking reasons for optimism.

Faced with shrinking advertising revenue that has led to a shedding of reporting, editing and production jobs across the nation, print newspapers are looking at creative strategies to keep the industry alive for the next generation of readers.

One promising option, among several suggested during a special forum in Mount Vernon last week addressing the decline of local news and its impact on democracy, calls for corporate sponsorship of print media outlets akin to what works for PBS and NPR on the broadcast side.

The two-hour event in the Mount Vernon High School auditorium, featured a panel of Ken Stern of the La Conner Weekly News, Jason Miller of the Concrete Herald, Ron Judd of Cascadia Daily News and Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times.

Mount Vernon High's award-winning debate team also performed. It was coordinated by the Skagit County League of Women Voters.

Stern stressed that in an industry transformed by technology and which continues to be impacted by the digital revolution, old school reporting and editing approaches still have their place.

Engaging readers is a priority, reaching out to them for input on topics of interest to the community – and encouraging their writing guest columns.

"I call them up," Stern said. "That's how I engage people."

He also does so by penning weekly editorials, always intended to evoke responses – both favorable and critical.

"I have learned to say I have a strong editorial voice," Stern said.

In his six years at the Weekly News, Stern has often said that while he owns the paper, it belongs to the entire community.

Dudley lamented the loss in the state of daily and weekly newspapers, victims of a changing economy and the growth of social media. Nationally, he said, there are now 70 million people with no local newspaper coverage. Others make do with what Dudley called "inferior coverage" provided by papers with remote owners whose pages are thin on local news, filled instead with wire service copy generated for a national readership.

Dudley, the only columnist in the U.S. who works full-time covering the local journalism crisis, said the loss of ad revenue and increased publication costs has created a "death spiral" for community newspapers.

"There's a bit of doom and gloom sometimes," he said, "but exciting things are happening, too."

He noted sponsorships by corporations and philanthropists of newspaper coverage addressing key topics.

"The former CEO of Microsoft contributed funds to the Times to cover mental health issues," Dudley said, providing one of an expanding number of examples.

Miller recounted how he was told that when the weekly Concrete Herald – which had enjoyed its heyday decades earlier under the legendary Charles Dwelley, who retired to Shelter Bay – folded in 1991, the upriver community was crushed.

"People lost that sense of connection with each other and with the upper valley," he said.

Miller, who disdains social media, has re-launched the Herald as a robust monthly publication.

"I'm sick of social media, which is long on opinions and short on facts," said Miller. "I have a searing passion to print facts.

"Social media," he added, "turns into a pit of vipers. That's what the algorithms are trying to do."

Miller said the beauty of print journalism is that readers will save valued articles and photographs.

"In print," he explained, "they cut something out and keep it and 25 or 30 years from now they'll bring it out."

Judd, a former Seattle Times columnist, has found a winning formula with the Bellingham-based Cascadia Daily News. The publication in its second year has a growing staff. Last week alone it received nearly two dozen letters to the editor last week.

"We try to be the people's representative in the greatest tradition of American journalism," Judd said.

Cascadia publishes a weekly print edition and maintains a daily on-line presence. It is a locally owned news source covering sports, entertainment, environmental issues, human interest stories, business and politics and provides opinion for its readership.

"I believe there's a market for news," Judd said. "We're just trying to come up with a new business model."

Judd said Cascadia's blueprint shows that local journalism is still sought by readers.

"We're here," he said, "because readers are there."

Dudley insisted that amid the ever-shifting news landscape, local journalism remains a bedrock of American society.

"The role of local journalism," he said, "is as important now as it ever has been, perhaps more so."