People frequently ask me how The New Era is doing and the answer, happily for those who wished for this outcome, is that we’re progressing steadily forward.
Thanks to the generosity of donors, who gave us a necessary financial boost to get this operation back on track, our bills are being paid and the staff who produce your newspaper are getting paychecks.
Not only has the newspaper benefitted from generous donors, but advertisers have allowed us to help promote themselves, which provides needed revenue through that channel. And we’ve been blessed with many renewals, revivals and newcomers to our ranks of subscribers.
When we look out at the journalism landscape in Oregon, we’re particularly grateful. It’s rough out there: Since 2004, 40% of the state’s newspapers have closed and more news staffs have been chopped off at the knees, leaving communities stuck in news deserts or served by ghost newspapers – publications that really exist in name only, having significantly reduced editorial content and reach, especially in terms of local news reporting.
We can all think of plenty of examples of those.
It’s certainly more challenging now to produce a newspaper than it’s ever been in my 45-some years of print journalism experience, 25 of that as an editor or publisher.
Readers who remember the full-page grocery ads, real estate listings, automobile advertisements and the pages of classified ads they no longer see in the newspaper shouldn’t have trouble figuring out why we have smaller pages and less of them. The proliferation of alternatives offered by Big Tech – social media and Google in particular, siphoning off advertising dollars with promises of targeted outreach for local businesses, has further complicated the picture.
Unfortunately, newspaper coverage doesn’t just happen.
Timothy Snyder, in his book “On Tyranny,”states clearly the importance of a newspaper to democracy and why newspapers need community support.
“We find it natural that we pay for a plumber or a mechanic, but demand our news for free,” he says. “If we did not pay for plumbing or auto repair, we would not expect to drink water or drive cars. Why then should we form our political judgment on the basis of zero investment? We get what we pay for.”
We’d love to have more pages, to run more photos, more stories, but each of those pages costs money and that’s why there are less of them. There’s less revenue and the remaining streams have to be pursued more vigorously now than ever.
One option, of course, is to become a web-only publication, which is what’s happened in a bunch of communities formerly served by publications on paper. Advocates for this option celebrate the benefits of the Internet – less production (and printing) costs, a capability to offer a very agile and responsive news presence, unlimited parameters for presenting news and information, etc.
Many – I’m not exaggerating – readers have told me just in the last few months that they like holding a paper in their hands, that it’s kind of restful to read static print and look at stationary photos (even if the printing is not always ideal) compared to the helter-skelter nature of many digital pages. Our websites don’t use pop-ups and don’t constantly wedge discombobulating ads between paragraphs for readers, but many readers still prefer the paper edition. Some of those simply don’t do computers – period.
So how do we navigate all that? It’s a question pondered and debated by newspaper publishers everywhere. This isn’t about getting rich. This is about staying afloat, staying alive to serve our communities.
Looking to history, there was a time when advertising was not the primary financial driver for newspapers (which didn’t happen until the 1830s). Instead, newspapers were supported by pricey subscriptions (a newspaper could cost a day’s wages) or political benefactors ( in what was known as the “partisan press” era).
Neither of those is a preferable option.
Recently, as publishers have grappled with this situation, newspapers have started seeking grants (particularly for nonprofit efforts), and, increasingly, finding themselves relying on non-advertising financial contributions.
One of those is community support in the form of donations. These are people who recognize that a robust independent community newspaper is a part of the fabric necessary for a healthy community.
They understand that “community journalism” includes reporting on activities of local government and education (being the town watchdog); highlights the interests and activities of local groups and individuals (not in a ridiculously sensationalistic way); covers local cultural, social, recreational and other activities; and provides opportunity for citizen expression of opinions about local life.
To facilitate such community support, some locally owned newspapers in Oregon have very recently banded together to form a nonprofit Oregon Public Information Partnership, which provides community members tax advantages when donating and partnering with their local paper.
As I said last December, when I first alerted the community to the situation facing The New Era, none of us want this. But it’s reality. In today’s world, with all the complications posed by Big Tech.
We’ve seen that we have support in the community and we like the fact that OPIP can provide an easy way for people and corporations to continue to contribute to our production of local news stories. So as we move forward, those who feel led to support our efforts in other ways besides those important subscriptions and advertising may find OPIP to be a great avenue to do that.