National Newspaper Association
Protecting, Promoting and Enhancing Community Newspapers Since 1885
Sustaining Rural Journalism by Al Cross
Al Cross edited and managed rural newspapers before covering politics for the Louisville Courier Journal and serving as president of the Society of Professional Journalists. He directs the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which is seeking a new director as he heads into retirement. For more information, contact him at al.cross@uky.edu.
To build trust and your audience, show how much you care, not just how much you know
"In one small consolation, Americans had more trust in local news.” ... It wasn’t a small consolation for people in local news, but it also had some warnings and offered the basis for ...
Editor ‘can handle mean,’ but can’t stand ‘baseless cynicism and unwillingness to think’
This month’s column is mainly from someone else because it illustrates a serious problem facing rural newspapers: How do they manage increasingly contentious public discourse and still maintain the ...
A new mission: answering how rural communities sustain journalism that serves local democracy
This column, which we started almost 12 years ago as a guide to covering rural issues, using examples from The Rural Blog, has a new name: Sustaining Rural Journalism.
Rural America is growing older faster than urban America; one in five rural Americans is older than 65, USDA says
"For the first time, more than one in five rural Americans is over the age of 65," reports Chuck Abbott of Successful Farming,citing a report from the Department of Agriculture report. “Rural America ...
Rural journalism is good journalism
We think it’s important to exalt examples of good work, and that’s why we present the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism — and partner with ...
A newspaper editor cries for help, in a surprisingly frank way, and gets it; his embarrassed publisher is glad he did
Under a headline reading, "Will you cheer the death of an institution or come to its aid?" Editor Chad Hobbs told how the paper was suffering from social media, a boycott by some advertisers upset about ...
Forums can rekindle interest in local news, help community appreciate your work
If there is an issue in the community that needs sorting out, have a forum to discuss it.
National Summit on Journalism in Rural America shows good journalism is good business
“I leave hopeful for community newspapers,” one attendee said as she left the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America June 4. And there were reasons to have hope.
Join the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America on YouTube, June 3-4
All this raises a fundamental question, not just for rural newspapers, but for their communities: How do rural communities sustain local journalism that supports local democracy? That is the question we ...
One way to put philanthropy in your business model: a community news fund
For independent newspaper owners who can’t find the right buyer, the key move could be transferring the paper to a nonprofit corporation and living on salary rather than distributions of profits. ...
Where will non-metropolitan news outlets get the revenue they need to support good journalism? We need answers
He sees a future in which “for-profit general news organizations of less than enormous scale (and therefore almost all local digital outlets) will increasingly be dependent almost entirely on reader ...
‘60 Minutes’ report on crisis in local journalism gives local media opportunity to elaborate, reinforce message
Most of those stories, and the belief that “journalism is essential for the survival of American democracy,” as one former reporter put it, are familiar to readers of The Rural Blog. But they ...
Stand up for the truth in your community
‘I got tired of the paper being part of the problem with people treating each other with a lack of respect. I realized we weren’t going to change anyone’s mind, and it wasn’t worth ...
AP lets nonmember weeklies republish its investigative story about 2020 election fraud
The truth has prevailed among most Americans, but not among most Republicans, and that’s a real problem for democracy — and for journalism, which is supposed to serve it.
Far too little fraud to make a difference in election, AP finds; it allows non-subscribing weeklies to republish story
Millions of Americans believe the 2020 election was stolen. That's not true, The Associated Press concluded after exhaustive investigations in the six most closely decided states.
NeSmith, Georgia publisher turns dying weekly into nonprofit to be maintained editorially by the University of Georgia
Two strategies that have been touted as ways to preserve community newspapers — the nonprofit model and university involvement – are combining to save a weekly newspaper in northeast Georgia. ...
Let’s steer some of that pandemic relief money into sample copying
Few vaccine-hesitant or -resistant people are likely to be persuaded by a news story or editorial urging vaccination, but it's important to keep delivering facts about the vaccines because social media ...
Pandemic facts can be delivered with unusual means: social media, Extension agents, federal funding
With the nation desperately in need of vaccination and masking to prevent deaths and keep our hospitals from being overrun, what role should community newspapers play?
Editorials provide leadership needed in pandemic
Hale-Spencer discovered that a court-appointed lawyer was going to sell the property to a developer. “We believe the price is not right and the assets are being ignored in the name of haste,” ...
Now we have to make people want local news
This is just one example of how we can get Americans interested in local news again. We can’t just talk about why newspapers are needed. We have to prove it.
