(Mankato, MN) -- Rural communities across Minnesota are seeing their local newspapers close as challenges hit the industry.
The Minnesota Center for Rural Policy and Development is releasing the results of their research that looks at newspaper publications between 2000 and 2022. During that time period, an estimated 26% of printed newspaper establishments are no longer in print. The number of employees saw a more dramatic fall from 9,499 to 2,844, a 70% change in the same time period. The researchers say the average print newspaper employees fell per establishment as well, from 28 to 11.
"You have -basically- a lot of papers trying to do the same amount of work with fewer people, "said Marnie Werner, the Vice President of Research and Operations for the MN Center for Rural Policy and Development, "A lot of newsrooms have half the staff they used to have."
Werner says this has a direct impact on the coverage of smaller and more rural communities. She argues some of the biggest impacts are that town hall and school board meetings now go uncovered or briefly mentioned, instead of the full coverage seen in previous years. However, the impact can also be felt with the lack of coverage around community events, scholarship announcements, and other hyper local topics.
Werner says one of the key reasons the the tightening of staffing levels is due to the business models of the newspapers. She says the transition from strictly physical to mixed and online journalism has wrecked havoc on the pricing structure of advertisements for local outlets, who rely on the revenue generated from these sources. More specifically, the research conducted in the report shows classified advertisements practically disappeared "seemingly overnight" when between the launch of Craigslist in 2005 and the Great Recession of 2008. Couple that with the closure of departments stores during the Great Recession and the Covid-19 Pandemic, it resulted in one of print journalism's largest backers for advertising dollars look elsewhere for less expensive advertising options. An excerpt from the report highlights this distinction.
"Tech giants like Facebook and Google appeared and began offering highly targeted advertising at a fraction of the cost of advertising in newspapers. Newspapers’ early response to this digital revolution was to move online with the hope of recapturing some of that advertising revenue through online readership. Unfortunately, the revenue from a single digital ad was (and is) so low that most print newspapers, especially smaller ones, haven’t been able to generate enough ad volume to come near replacing the lost revenue, even though digital ads continue to grow as a share of advertising revenue overall."
Proposed Solutions
Werner says there are some key takeaways hidden in the collected data. She says the industry is not dead but needs to change how they do their business. One suggestion from the research suggests public or private investments in local journalism greatly help fill the rural news-voids when applied properly. Another suggestion is finding ways to bring news to "the digitally unconnected and the disengaged" population, a group of people who receive their news in-part from print sources, but largely gather their information via tv or other electronic methods. Diversifying revenue streams is also suggested as a key reason for success in the rural newspaper industry across the state. The report says this is done via subscription models, sponsorships, grants, and individual gifts from philanthropic donors.
Another method of support provided by the report outlines solutions via government involvement. This largely can come from having meeting minutes and summaries, but also can be done through official "Official Newspapers" for cities and jurisdictions. Legislation has also been proposed in Congress to find a way to provide revenue to the outlets, like the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2022, and the Local Journalism Sustainability Act.
You can find more information on the health of rural newspapers across Minnesota by clicking here.
