Weeklies’ demise has been greatly exaggerated

Brian Allfrey, executive director of the Utah Press Association, takes exception with the website usnewsdeserts.com that suggests Utah has multiple “news deserts.” | Lee Benson, Deseret News

WEST JORDAN — For some time now, Brian Allfrey has been hearing the news and it hasn’t been good.

A media watchdog group at the University of North Carolina keeps telling Allfrey, who is executive director of the Utah Press Association, that weekly newspapers are on a slippery slope to nowhere, creating what are being called “news deserts” — places where people have no access to local journalism.

According to usnewsdeserts.com, the website maintained by the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina, Utah has lost 35% of its weekly newspapers in the past 15 years, from 43 in 2004 to 26 in 2019.

At this, Allfrey scratches his head.

“We have 45 members of the press association,” he says, “and 39 of them are weeklies. I mean, right off the bat, that doesn’t make sense. Their numbers don’t add up.”

In truth, since the internet began taking its toll on print newspapers shortly after the turn of the century, the net loss for Utah weeklies is just four. That’s a 9% decline, not 35%.

Allfrey is biased of course, as he readily admits. He’s in charge of an organization that does everything it can to preserve, protect and promote local journalism. Painting a picture of the sky falling much faster than it actually is doesn’t make his job any easier.

“We’ve lost some newspapers,” he allows. “But we haven’t lost a whole county.”

Utah has just two counties that qualify as “news deserts” (not the six asserted by UNC) — and that’s because they are true deserts.

Rich County in the extreme northern part of the state has a population of 2,391 people, for an average of two people per square mile. It has never had a newspaper, as far as Allfrey knows. The other news desert is Daggett County in the northeast corner next to Wyoming, home to 1,029 people. It’s never had a paper either.

Part of the discrepancy — and isn’t this always the case with statistics? — is the way newspapers are counted.

In Beaver County, for instance, the North Carolina people call it a news desert despite the fact that the Beaver County Journal is alive, well, and open for business. But instead of charging for subscriptions, the Beaver County Journal mails its newspaper to county residents free of charge, relying on advertising revenue to stay afloat.

“It’s a free newspaper so they won’t count it,” says Allfrey.

This isn’t to suggest weekly newspapers, free or otherwise, haven’t lost circulation in the social media revolution, or that their reporting staffs haven’t been reduced.

“But weekly newspapers have not lost circulation like daily newspapers; their declines are just not as drastic,” says Allfrey, noting that weeklies, unlike dailies, are often the only source for local grassroots journalism. Weeklies disseminate information that can’t be found anywhere else, including on your phone.

“Weeklies are surviving,” he says. “I don’t feel like we have a bunch of weekly newspapers losing money. I don’t see their financials, but they are surviving. Rumors of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

Allfrey is only 45, but that’s still old enough to remember when the majority of front porches, or at least the nearby bushes, used to hear the thud of a newspaper on a regular basis.

He waxes eloquent about the power of print.

“I think there are still a lot of people who want to touch and feel a newspaper,” he says. “They want that routine. And there’s something about the printed piece that it doesn’t change. In this era of fake news I can have a story online and then someone grabs it and tweaks it and poaches it so it says something different. You can’t do that with the printed piece. The barrier to entry is pretty high for print. Digitally there is no barrier to entry.”

Allfrey is confident newspapers will weather the current storm as it has all the others.

“In 1895 radio was supposed to render newspapers dead,” he says. “In the 1940s it was TV, and now it’s the internet. Well, it’s 2020 and newspapers are still here.”

And in larger numbers than some statisticians in North Carolina might have you think.

“Eventually it probably all goes digital,” Allfrey concedes. “I’m not a diehard that says print will live forever. What I’m hoping is that in the meantime somehow our industry finds a way to keep that authenticity that you have with the printed piece. It’s not about saving print, it’s about saving journalism.”

from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2VRpSTo