The headline tells the story.
Out-of-state readers can see this as just another iteration of a national story: Local newspapers are closing down. This week it was our turn. But for people who have read the Mail Tribune for decades, it is like the death of an old friend.
This isn't sudden. We have been watching the Tribune die from starvation and mistreatment. The paper has gotten thinner, and local stories fewer. Then it went from seven-day print, to four-day print, to all digital. It became thinner yet. It became a collection of national stories written by far-away people, published in far-away newspapers. The Tribune has been in hospice. Seeing it shrunken and barely aware of the world around it, we don't really mourn its death. It had already stopped living.
People who read the Tribune for decades told me that they barely glanced at it now. "I just read it for the obituaries," one fellow-Rotarian told me. He had heard about it shutting down by text message a few minutes before he showed me his phone. That exemplifies part of what killed the Tribune. I got breaking news from a friend's phone, who got the word from a friend who saw it on a Facebook post by a soon-to-be unemployed employee of the paper.
I comment on politics but what I do isn't local journalism. Communities need local journalism, with reporters and editors. News needs to be curated. Events need to be put into context. A citizen who attends a two-hour school board or city council meeting sees something. However, the meaning of what a person sees is only apparent if a person knows the people and issues involved. A reporter and editor who have been putting in the time to follow the story can put it into context.
All is not lost. The MailTribune's absence clears the way for new options. One is that the local TV stations have news departments. The kind of news that fits in a "news, sports, and weather" TV format is visual, not analytical, but TV stations have websites. With the Tribune gone there may be much more traffic to them. Advertisers need audiences and TV websites need advertisers. News can attract an audience. People who click on a link to see a weather forecast might see a written news story on construction delays at Hillcrest and Foothills Road. Those are the kinds of stories that newspapers used to run, back when they had reporters. On TV perhaps it would be necessary to have a video of a flagger holding a bright orange "slow" sign and an excavator putting dirt into a dump truck. But on a website, maybe just the story is enough.
There is another potential option. In the aftermath of the closing of the Ashland Daily Tidings, a group of citizens organized an on-line community newspaper using a business model similar to public radio or public TV. Their website, www.Ashland.news, has a mix of subscribers paying voluntarily, major donors, and advertisers. Public broadcasting shows that people will voluntarily pay for content they value. The growth of independent journalists writing on Substack is another demonstration that this business model can work. People are now accustomed to paying for electronic content. Ashland.news gets paid by the City of Ashland to run public notice announcements. They have 2,000 subscribers and 15,000 unique page views every month. So far it is working and building.
What is possible in Ashland may not be possible elsewhere in Jackson County, but the Medford area has assets to bring to the table of local journalism. The county has 225,000 people with a need for local news. It is a market, health, and transportation center for the region. A new institution would not be burdened by debt, a need to show a profit, or legacy real estate and printing equipment. Possibly something much bigger and better than Ashland.news is possible. There is opportunity and there are resources. I will be watching and helping.
If something starts to jell I will keep readers of this blog informed.
Tomorrow: I will comment on what I think killed the Tribune. Foolish decisions by the owner/publisher were only part of it. There are huge forces at work.
This was a sad story to read, Peter, but I hadn’t subscribed to the Tribune for many years. And when I read it on visits to the Rogue Valley it really didn’t seem worth buying. However, your comments about the Ashland Daily Tidings made me think that after The Denver Post folded, many years of mis-management as part of the issue, professional editors and reporters founded The Colorado Sun. One can read it online for free but for a small subscription one can get all the local news. It represents excellent journalism. Of course Denver has a much larger population than the Rogue Valley but perhaps this model that seems to be working for The Sun and the Ashland paper could work in Medford. It’s so disheartening to see a Pulitzer prize winning paper for articles about corrupt local politicians die. I look forward to your article tomorrow(1/13).
This is heartbreaking. My relationship with the Tribune started in 1967, when helped my big brother deliver papers on Lozier Lane. I was 9 and he was 12. I think running a small-town paper is a labor of love, and that got lost a long time ago. A fresh start might be the best thing.