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Orzo Gnocchi said the lazy brown fox chased the red fox and they jumped over the fence, not knowing what might confront them on the other side.

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A pressing problem facing many independently owned community newspapers serving rural markets in the U.S. is that a pipeline of newsroom leadership is lacking.

This study seeks to provide a diagnosis on the state of community journalism and to analyze plausible causes for this multi-faceted problem.

Case studies of four community newspapers

• An online survey of 362 newspaper publishers affiliated with the Texas Press Association
• Data collection: February-April 2022
• Response rate = 33%
• Valid responses = 100

This study provides a timely evaluation of the state of rural journalism in one of the largest states in the United States.

• Crisis: Nearly a quarter of these papers are seeking ownership changes – the retirement of current publishers as the number one reason.

Newspaper profile

Geography

When asked what kind of geographic markets they serve, 83% of the 100 newspapers said they serve a rural market, 30% serve a suburban market, and 14% operate in an urban setting.

Population

Specifically, about 44% cover an area of a population under 20,000; 39% serve a population of 20,000 to 100,000, and 17% serve a population over 100,000.

Print publication schedule 

The majority (60%) are weeklies, followed by� those that publish 2-6 times a week (24%),�and 6% are dailies.

Print circulation

1,000 or less 18%

1,001-2,000 31%

2,001-5,000 29%

5,001-20,000 14%

35,001+ 2%

Saving Rural Journalism:�Leadership Pipeline and Economic Sustainability

Kathleen McElroy, Ph.D., Director and Professor

Iris Chyi, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Christian McDonald, Assistant Professor of Practice

Christopher T. Assaf, Doctoral Student

School of Journalism and Media

ruraljournalismpipeline@austin.utexas.edu

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23% of the newspapers are seeking ownership changes in the next 3 years.

Among them, less than a half (n=11) said it is likely that they will find a new publisher in 3 years.

Reasons for seeking ownership changes:

1. Retirement (n=17)

2. Business factors (n=6)

3. Readership declines (n=6)

4. Staff shortage (n=4)

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• Reality: The “newspapers are dying” narrative has gone viral, but more than 50% of these newspapers made a profit in 2021 and more expect to be profitable in 2022.
• Future: Publishers are positive or strongly positive, but some need help with identifying future leadership and training on how to prepare their publications to sell.

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