I live in a rural area. Local newspapers have been losing readers with population declines, the decline in reading in general, and the swarm of gigantic hedge funds looking to loot 100+ year old newspaper pensions and endowments to make even more money for the obscenely wealthy.
They don’t care that they destroy local news reporting by laying off entire newsrooms. They don’t care that copy editing is shipped offshore to people who barely understand the basics of the English language and who absolutely cannot understand the unique spelling of local people and places.
They don’t care that there are zero columns for weeks on end about the locality. If one shows up, it is often written by an affiliated newsroom in a different community. They don’t care that more than once they print columns and sports scores that are from entirely different regions in the country.
They simply don’t care.
We found a hole in the local market and we are filling it.
It’s hard work starting a newspaper from scratch, especially when building on the ruins of a Pulitzer Prize-winning juggernaut whose owners decided to take their money and run.
It’s worth it. Rural stories deserve to be told.
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