There was a time, decades really, when consuming the news meant reading a physical newspaper that arrived on your doorstep every morning, or relaxing at the end of the day with an avuncular anchor who delivered the news on one of three television networks.
Not anymore.
The business of journalism has been changing for decades, first as owners became more focused on profits and market share. Then the internet arrived, offering easy, instant, and often free access to virtually any information from around the world. Computers, cellphones, and tablets upended journalism by changing how, when, and where we get the news as well as how it’s paid for and even what we consider a trusted source of news.
In the face of declining advertising revenues and readership, newspapers have had to adapt or die. According to veteran journalist Al Cross, an average of 2.5 local papers are shuttered each week. Many of those that have survived so far are scaling back on publication days, coverage, and staffing. For example, Cross says when he worked at the Louisville Courier Journal, the Frankfort press corps covering legislative sessions numbered upwards of 30 people. Last year, he says there were six journalists there. Smaller staff also means fewer people reporting on hometown city council, fiscal court, and school board meetings. Cross says that’s resulted in the loss of the vital watchdog function those newspapers traditionally provided their readers.
“Every community needs a trusted source of information that is broadly received,” says Cross, who is director emeritus of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. “There’s good research that shows when you don’t have reportorial attention on local governments, you have higher taxes, you have more wasteful spending, you pay more for bond issues, fewer people run for office.”
Even the state’s largest newspapers are struggling with the changes. The Lexington Herald-Leader recently announced that it will publish print editions only three days a week starting in August. Instead of being delivered by carriers, those papers will be mailed to subscribers. Executive Editor Rick Green says he and his staff are no longer in the print profession. They are in the business of delivering high quality “content” 24/7.
“It’s an understatement to say that it’s challenging,” says Green. “I still publish a newspaper, but it’s more about how do we deliver meaningful content no matter (on) what device, what platform the people want to read it.”
Traditional Journalism in the Modern Media Landscape
The internet and social media have changed how people get their news and have blurred the definition of journalism for some Americans. Cross says traditional journalism is built on a strict discipline of verifying all the details in a story.
“We tell you how we know something or we attribute it to somebody, and we’re mainly about facts, not about opinion,” says Cross. “Social media are mainly about opinion, not facts, and they have little if any discipline or verification.”
The rise of cable TV and social media has also made it easier for people across the political spectrum to access content that matches their partisan leanings and validates their opinions. Meanwhile, repeated accusations of “fake news” have reinforced the skepticism some Americans feel about journalism and journalists.
Part of the problem, according to Cross, is that journalists have failed to explain themselves and their craft – for instance, that they hold themselves accountable, and they want to be held to account by others. He says actual journalism is practiced without ideological bias or personal agenda.
Green says he wants his journalists to interact and connect with their readers to learn what issues keep them awake at night, and then pursue stories that reflect those concerns. He contends hometown newspapers like the Herald-Leader, which dates back to 1870, shouldn’t be painted as “the enemy of the people.” Instead, he says it comprises people who care deeply about their community and their state.
“We’re more than a newspaper,” says Green. “We’ve been here for 154 years, we’re your neighbors.”
The Rise of Donor-Supported, Non-Profit Journalism
But even while newspapers have worked to enhance their community engagement, the revenue model has not kept pace with current economic realities. The advertising that was once the bread and butter of newspapers has gone to digital platforms where businesses can more easily target a specific audience. That’s left editors and publishers to look elsewhere to fund their operations.
“It’s not the advertisers that are necessarily footing the bill for my newsroom now, it’s loyal subscribers,” Green says.
Many news operations are also looking to philanthropic sources to support coverage with grants and donations. Green says the Herald-Leader used donations to pay for a summer intern, and he recently received a $10,000 check from an anonymous donor in Louisville. He says editors who aren’t willing to ask for donations probably shouldn’t be in the business today. Cross says soliciting contributions from readers or charitable organizations shouldn’t be seen as a failure, but rather as a recognition that the journalism economy has inexorably changed.
Donor and philanthropic support is behind two non-profit news outlets now operating in the commonwealth. The Hoptown Chronicle launched in 2019 to serve Hopkinsville with fact-based reporting, while the statewide Kentucky Lantern started in 2022.
“We practice public service journalism,” says Jennifer Brown, co-founder, publisher, and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. “We make decisions to cover stories often that others are not covering.”
Through their website, free newsletters, and content sharing agreements with other media, the Chronicle strives to help readers understand their community, its history, and how it operates today. Brown, who worked in print journalism for 30 years before going digital, says their daily and weekly newsletters have proven incredibly popular with readers.
“We’re very small but I think we have a real strong engagement with the community,” says Brown.
Most Kentucky counties still have at least a weekly newspaper, says Cross. Many of those papers used to be locally owned and operated, but Cross says now a third of them are owned by one company, Paducah-based Paxton Media Group. Brown says she hopes more communities will adopt the Hoptown Chronicle model so that they can have access to news coverage that may no longer be available from their local newspapers.
While the Chronicle targets a local audience, the Kentucky Lantern seeks to serve readers across the commonwealth from its base in Frankfort.
“Our focus is policy,” says Jamie Lucke, editor in chief of the Lantern. “We want to explain, we want to illuminate, we want to investigate how policy affects people in Kentucky in their day-to-day lives.”
Like the Chronicle, the Lantern is supported by donations and grants, and offers its content free of subscriptions and paywalls. A key difference for the Lantern is that it is part of a national nonprofit organization called States Newsroom. Its affiliated publications around the country share content with each other to help deepen coverage of key policy issues like the economy, environment, government, and public health.
“One of the principles of States Newsroom is that the level of government that really affects people most directly, it’s not in (Washington) D.C, it’s in state capitals,” Lucke says. “So to tell the story of the states tells the story of the nation, and that’s part of what we want to do.”
Lucke, who is a former editorial writer for the Herald Leader, jokes that the Lantern’s readership numbers wouldn’t satisfy the hedge funds that own some newspaper chains today. But she says the response she and her three reporters get to their stories proves there is a hunger for their kind of storytelling.
“We want to bring as many voices as possible into our stories,” says Lucke. “That kind of discourse and engagement has been very rewarding for us.”
Proposed Legislation on Government Transparency
Whether in the smaller news startups or in the legacy newsrooms, Kentucky journalists rallied to oppose legislation before the 2024 General Assembly that they say would have undermined government transparency. Opponents of House Bill 509 contend the measure, which had bipartisan support, would have allowed state and local government officials to conduct the public’s business on their personal cellphones or other devices without those communications being subject to open records requirements. The state House of Representatives passed the bill on a 61 to 31 vote. The measure later died in the Senate but could be revived when the legislature convenes next year.
“We dodged a bullet this session,” says Green. “As an editor, one of the things that keeps me up at night is that free flow of access to public records and information that the taxpayers, the voters, the residents, constituents in Kentucky deserve to have. It’s the public’s work being done and paid for by the public.”
Lawmakers who supported HB 509 say they don’t want the media to have access to personal messages that might be on their personal device or private email account. But Green says if a government official is doing the public’s business on their personal phone or email, then it should be public record.
Michael Abate, a First Amendment and media law attorney who testified against the measure, says the state’s open records law has been in place for five decades. He contends the transparency requirements are crucial in an age when more government officials are trying to hide their actions from public scrutiny.
“More and more everyday I’m seeing agencies just issuing pretty blatantly illegal denials of records because they assume no one’s going to call them on it,” says Abate. “Repeat violators... just assume they’ll get away with it and it’s quite unfortunate.”
The Kentucky Press Association operates a freedom of information hotline that Abate says gets calls from reporters everyday seeking advice about open records and open meetings issues as well as other concerns. He says the watchdog function that print journalists provide over city halls and fiscal courts is critical.
“The small-D democracy work is done at every local paper all across the commonwealth every day,” says Abate.
