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So goes the school, so goes the newspaper, so goes the town.
Such an observation is neither original nor germane to some of America, but in Nebraska it is a fact of life — sometimes a sad fact when a small town loses its newspaper.
For further details on two Nebraska newspapers closing their doors, I recommend Paul Hammel’s excellent piece in the Nebraska Examiner, which you can find here. He puts into perspective what the loss of a newspaper means to communities such as Ainsworth and Valentine, the pair set to cease publishing after Dec. 25 unless new buyers step up. Hammel also provides background on the troubling trend of small newspapers unplugging their presses and silencing voices throughout the country.
Why small town newspapers close their doors varies, but similar stories of newsrooms going dark have emerged in many places. At the Ainsworth Star-Journal and Valentine Midland News papers, losing key personnel, mailing costs and impending retirement are factors. But their situation also mirrors what many newspapers, small and large, face today including the price of production. After some relief, newsprint costs surged again in July, increasing nearly 8% according to exchange4media, a website providing data for marketing, advertising and media industries.
Of all the challenges for newspapers since the advent of the internet, however, perhaps none captures what publications are up against as much as the loss of advertisers to online sources. When production costs rise and advertisers leave — especially in classifieds, where the world of online “lists” (Craig, Angie, etc.) replaced agate type on newsprint — the combination can be debilitating and sometimes deadly. That is true for any newspaper but especially for small weeklies serving rural communities.
Nor has joining the digital universe made much of a difference in bolstering newspaper audiences, which continue to fall. According to Pew Research, using figures from the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM), readership is down both weekdays and Sunday, even when you combine print and digital access.
When a small town closes its school to consolidate with nearby towns, it must rearrange a culture or mindset on which the town has established its identity. Pivoting to collaborate with and cheer for former rivals is one thing; losing the physical presence of a school building is quite another. PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, Christmas pageants, bake sales, band concerts, big games, even graduations are now in another place where a town may have identity in name, but in practice, for too many, the feeling of loss never quite heals.
When a small town newspaper closes, the loss severs another definitive connection that knits a community together through the stories of its lives and times: high school sports highlights from a busy Friday night; the births and deaths, triumphs and tragedies of neighbors and friends; the latest on the ebb and flow of Main Streets from new businesses to continued traditions; even an editor’s opinion of a new law, a proposed change, simple praise or polite criticism, enough to keep people talking and debating at coffee shops and bars.
In sum, community newspapers are community stewards, chronicling history with an ever-present shining light on the present. When that illumination is darkened, when the town’s written narrative ends, a community loses yet another semblance of its whole.
The consequences, not unlike the loss of a physical school, are often measured in population and economics, but small towns that lose newspapers also lose their stories and, if not careful, a fraying of their sense of self and identity as a community.
I was pleased to read, too, of the Nebraska Press Association’s efforts to combat the loss of community newspapers. And bravo for its willingness to address the issue with a program that keeps the potential storytellers local because who better knows those stories than those who live there.
Clearly, the country finds itself in an ongoing information crisis where too often dependable, relevant stories, ideas and information are either unavailable, inaccurate or whole cloth lies. The usual suspect, social media, surely is the star of this continuing drama.
Too many former newspaper readers now turn to other sources for information and news, from Facebook to X to TikTok, where editing and reporting, the process you find in a community newspaper, is nearly nonexistent. The result: The diminution of the truth.
So when a small town loses its newspaper, we all lose — not simply the stories and history of that place in that time but also the respect and reverence we should have for the process and effort by which they are told.
George Ayoub filed nearly 5,000 columns, editorials and features in 21 years as a journalist for the Grand Island Independent. His columns also appeared in the Omaha World-Herald and Kearney Hub.
