Newspaper Rebirth?

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The story below is a preview from our March/April 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you! 

Local print publications have suffered significantly in recent years, giving rise to other forms of competition, especially from the internet. Can they survive?

Don Lorton, who lives in the rural Snow Creek section of Franklin County, has had so many problems with timely delivery of his newspaper that he thought an online subscription would be a good idea. Except: “They kept telling us ‘just get a digital subscription.’ Rural people don’t have very good internet options. That print edition was important to us. My first subscription was in college in 1983. I really miss it.”

And so it goes as one of the traditions of the American home appears to be breathing its last breath. There’s no need to go into the myriad reasons for the daily paper’s—The Roanoke Times in this region—demise because you know those, especially if you are or were a subscriber. The most asked question is “what comes next?” We are finding that plenty comes next, some of it is already here, and most of it is welcome.

While some print in the Roanoke Valley is not suffering the way The Times is with its dramatically decreased staff and page-count, its spotty delivery and its all-but-fatal loss of advertising revenue, the health of past years is elusive.

Local small-town and small-time newspapers, notably those owned by Mountain Media (Salem Times-Register, Fincastle Herald, Vinton Messenger and New Castle Record) continue to pump out relatively healthy sports sections and community news that has always been their forte. Their revenue seems stable as well, though Publisher Michael Showell (whose headquarters for the group of weeklies is in West Virginia) did not respond to requests for comment. The primary question for Mountain Media and anybody else who relies on a press is, “How long?” MM long-time sports editor Brian Hoffman, an iconic figure in the Valley and one of the reasons for the publications’ popularity, just turned 70.

What have risen recently in the growing void are two game-changing internet alternatives: Cardinal News, which is getting national attention for its non-profit, news-in-depth approach, and The Roanoke Rambler, a subscription-driven site that covers Roanoke the way a newspaper would. It is seriously limited because Henri Gendreau, a former Times reporter, is mostly doing it on his own, daily. He only gives a nodding glance to the prospect of his own burnout.  Gendreau insists his “mission is different” from that of other media, but admittedly, he wants “to be the people’s news source.”

So do they all.

People, Gendreau insists, “are thirsty for real stories, investigative journalism, what happened and why. We want to help fill some of those gaps.”

So does Cardinal, which is considerably bigger, wealthier and far more high-profile with its ground-breaking format and corporate financial support. Gendreau doesn’t want the corporate support; Cardinal seeks it. Cardinal has been hiring staffers and freelance contributors at an impressive rate and its reach goes all the way to the coal fields, Richmond and Northern Virginia, though the coverage area is primarily Southwest Virginia and Southside. The Times was once the star attraction in the far southwest with the first of its five daily editions. Those have shrunk to one daily edition and the deadlines are so early that getting news or sports that happen at night means waiting a full day.

NPR political reporter Mara Liasson, appearing at a Roanoke College event recently, said she likes the Cardinal model.  “Some [newspapers] are becoming non-profit,” she says, “but I am ambivalent to that. What I would prefer is for them to team up with the local NPR station to deliver local news.”

Cardinal editor Dwayne Yancey (former award-winning editorial page editor of The Times) defines his target audience thusly: The audience is “‘civically-engaged’—people who are interested in and care about their communities. We’ve built a statewide audience.”

Yancey emphasizes that “we assume our readers are getting their news from multiple sources, including their local daily. … Day in and day out, we’re trying to cover different stories for a different audience. For example, we’re not covering city councils or school boards or courts or public safety or games. We assume that local media, be it newspapers or TV stations, will continue to do that. Our goal is to do the big-picture stories they’re not doing. I’d make an offhand guess that 95% of the stories we’re doing are unique to us.”

Yancey and Cardinal co-founder/executive director Luanne Rife were stars with The Times during their long tenures, but both thought the Cardinal venture could define the remainder of their careers. “I left because I saw an opportunity to help create something new with Cardinal News. It’s worked out far better than I envisioned. We’ve grown much faster than we anticipated,” says Yancey.

Rife says that she “left The Roanoke Times when the latest round of cutbacks meant that there would be little opportunity to report and write in-depth stories. The business, education and political reporting also were gutted.”

“When we created Cardinal News, we believed that our target audience would be … readers who missed in-depth reporting that provided insight into issues,” Rife continues. “We wanted to do the types of stories that legacy media abandoned, and readers missed. We [believe] this type of reporting is important for our communities to remain or to become vibrant, and that without independent, in-depth journalism, democracy suffers.”

Recently, The Times announced it was all-in on investigative reporting, creating several new positions meant “to drive public accountability journalism throughout [owner Lee Enterprises’] local news markets, including in the Roanoke and New River Valleys,” according to a press release.

Lee VP for local news Jason Adrians, who does not live in this area, was also quoted as saying, “The creation of our Public Service Journalism team strengthens our company’s commitment to investigative and data journalism, because it’s the work that can truly make a difference in the communities we serve. … We’re investing in local news talent and tools, premium reporting and storytelling, and the development of young journalists.”

(Sam Worthington, the regional president and director of sales and marketing in the Roanoke Valley for Lee, which has 77 newspapers, 26 in Virginia, cited corporate policy in declining to be interviewed for this story).

Want to learn more about how local journalists are finding new ways to share news, including insights from Radford University journalism professor Bill Kovarik? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!

The story above is a preview from our March/April 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!