How the loss of local newspapers fueled political divisions in the U.S.

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Over the past few decades, more than 2,000 newspapers across the country have closed, leaving many communities without a reliable source of local information.

  Researchers say this crisis in journalism driven by changes in technology is fueling the country's political divisions.

  Judy Woodruff recently visited one community in North Texas as part of her ongoing series America at a Crossroads.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Tucked away in the Texas Panhandle in an isolated pocket of the country long dominated by ranching, drilling and the railroad is the city of Canadian, population 2,300.

  But since March of this year, a longtime fixture of this community, something residents say had bound them together through good times and bad, has been missing.

• John Julian, Canadian Water Well:

  It's just got a — kind of a hole in it, a vacancy right now.

• Wendie Cook, Canadian, Texas, City Council:

  I just don't know who's going to be sharing all of the champions and the good news in our community.

• Steve Rader, Rancher:

  It's almost like a death in the family. We don't talk about it a lot. We just go, oh, I can't believe we don't have it.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Earlier this year, the city's weekly newspaper, The Canadian Record, stopped printing. These days, its bracket sits empty.

  But, for decades, Laurie Brown would put up a flag outside her office each Thursday to let the town know that the newest edition was available. The Record was a family affair that became her life's work, and in its pages, Brown documented the city council, school and hospital board meetings, the impacts of droughts and wildfires, the babies born, football games won, and residents lost.

  She lobbied for the construction of a new assisted living center, Mesa View, and for the installation of a blinking stop sign at a three-way highway intersection that had seen too many fatal accidents.

• Laurie Brown, The Canadian Record:

  I tell people we have sometimes helped good things happen, and we often stopped bad things from happening. And it's not because we're so powerful. It's because information is powerful.

  And we're making sure the community, the people who care about these things, know about them. We had probably five or six pages of classifieds. They're pretty much down to one, one-and-a-half now.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Yet, after so many years of holding the paper together, as classified ad purchases dwindled and reporters left and were not replaced, earlier this year, Brown made the difficult decision to suspend publication.

• Laurie Brown:

  We were already working on sort of a shoestring. And I just didn't see how I could do it. I needed a break. And it was the hardest decision I have ever made. And I still lie awake at night wondering whether it was a good decision or not.

• Judy Woodruff:

  What's happened to The Record here in Canadian is not unique.

  Across the country, over the past two decades, more than 2,200 weekly newspapers have closed down. And tens of thousands of reporters have been laid off. And researchers say that not only has profound effects on the practice of journalism, but also on the country's civic health.

• Johanna Dunaway, Syracuse University:

  Local news is something that reminds people of what they have in common, both their challenges and their shared identities, their shared culture, their shared community.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Johanna Dunaway is a professor and research director at Syracuse University's Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship.

  She says the broad decline of local newspapers nationally, driven largely by plummeting revenue, as advertising moved online, has contributed to the rising polarization now seen across the country.

• Johanna Dunaway:

  I mean, national news, for all of its many benefits, it tends to frame politics in America through the lens of the major conflicts between the two parties, right?

  And for those Americans or those citizens who are only watching the national news, they often only get this sort of game-frame style coverage, that it's almost like sports reporting with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other.

• Woman:

  Facing a growing showdown with Republicans over America's ability to pay off its debt, President Biden speaking to union members in Maryland.

• Woman:

  McCarthy is putting the blame on President Biden here.

• Jeanine Pirro, FOX News Anchor:

  Desperate Joe Biden dusting off his MAGA boogeyman talking points.

• Woman:

  We're both old enough to remember when Republicans were going after Democrats for defund the police.

• Johanna Dunaway:

  One of the things local news does is reminds people that, oh, that person, they may be of the other party, but they're facing the same challenge that I'm facing.

• Laurie Brown:

  We have always reported the news that is the most important to the people who live here.

• Judy Woodruff:

  In 2017, documentary filmmaker Heather Courtney began following Laurie Brown as she covered this largely rural conservative community that voted overwhelming for President Trump in 2016 and again in 2020.

• Laurie Brown:

  What happens if nobody is doing this?

• Judy Woodruff:

  Highlighting her complex relationship with her fellow Canadians, who relied on Brown and her reporting, even as they often disagreed with her editorials.

• Laurie Brown:

  They didn't want me to report that Biden had won that election. And, by God, the Electoral College has voted, and Joe Biden is going to be our president, and I'm going to make sure it is in the goddamn newspaper.

  Heather Courtney, Director and Producer, "For the Record": I mean, she says in the film that her politics don't match the politics of this town.

  But, at the same time, the people here are very still very much supportive of the paper, and they will go and they will talk to Laurie about whatever they might disagree about in her editorial. And I think that that's something that has broken down in most places around the country.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Steve Rader is a rancher who lives 18 miles outside of Canadian in the adjoining county.

  Hi there.

• Steve Rader, Rancher:

  There's Rose. And this is…

• Judy Woodruff:

  For him, The Record was a lifeline to the community and to his past, and its loss has been especially hard.

• Steve Rader:

  Our paper spoiled us. They did so much work. And it was so colorful and beautiful, and they celebrated our successes and our tough times.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It feels personal.

• Steve Rader:

  Oh, yes, yes. Yes, that paper was a part of our life. People from hundreds of miles away came and supported our community.

• Judy Woodruff:

  In 2017, a wildfire burned more than 300,000 acres, including 12 sections of grass on Rader's ranch, four trailers, equipment, and 85 cattle.

• Steve Rader:

  But if the paper hadn't told about it, nobody would have known. And people responded. People we didn't even know from all over the country sent us hay and feed.

  And a lady from New Mexico sent us 10 cows to replace the ones that had died. And the paper, not that we were whining or needing attention, but it brought it to the forefront and documented what happened.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Laurie, the editor, would put her own opinions as editor in the paper. Did you always agree with what she was writing?

• Steve Rader:

  No. No. But she always made me think.

  I hate to say it, Judy, but her family opposed the Vietnam War in the '70s, and they received a lot of flak over that. And, looking back, I think they were totally right. We need to have other opinions. That's our strength of America. Thank God for that.

• Wendie Cook:

  I don't want to live in a place that has echo chambers everywhere, where everyone thinks the same.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Wendie Cook is the executive director of the Citadelle Art Museum, a collection housed in a former Baptist church downtown. She moved here from Dallas years ago with her husband, who grew up in Canadian.

  In addition to the museum, she works as an interior designer, and, for the past six years, has served on the City Council. Without the paper, she worries that a level of accountability in local government will be lost.

• Wendie Cook:

  I have a concern about who is telling the critical pieces of information.

  The city is facing a bond election. Who is giving the factual information about how that bond election is going to fund? Right now, without The Canadian Record, I fear that our voter information is coming from our stuffed mailboxes, from candidates or from PACs, who, by their very nature, are providing biased material for our community.

• John Julian:

  Well, right now, if there's a name pops up on a ballot for one of the elections, and you do not know them, you really don't have no means of finding out, who are they? Where did they come from? Are they married? Do they have kids?

• Judy Woodruff:

  John Julian operates a water well construction business in town, and he agrees with Wendie Cook.

• John Julian:

  It kind of leaves me in a 50-50, flip a coin, do I vote yes, or do I vote no for them, if you don't know. And I don't like to be in that position. If I'm going to make a vote, I want it to be an informed, educated vote.

• Johanna Dunaway:

  People don't feel comfortable voting when they know virtually nothing about any of the people running for office.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Johanna Dunaway of Syracuse University says that, in addition to the loss of shared identity, when a local news source closes, there are potentially a number of other impacts, including more corruption and irresponsible spending, more straight ticket voting, less competitive elections, and lower turnout.

• Johanna Dunaway:

  And then it's just more of a cycle, right? The legislators or city council people or mayoral office folks realize this, and so then why would they cater to those — the people who aren't going to turn out and vote for them?

  So then they're only turning out — they're only sort of behaving in lockstep with the preferences of the people who do vote. And those are the citizens who tend to have very strong partisan preferences and tend to have the most extreme policy preferences.

  And so then you get more polarizing behavior on the part of both the voters and those holding office.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Do you think that our country can stay strong, that our democracy can stay strong well into the future with, frankly, hollowed-out local journalism?

• Johanna Dunaway:

  I worry that it can't, because I worry that we are more susceptible to this kind of tribal attitude and behavior that, sometimes, political elites at the national level on both sides, they try to use that to sort of — for their own strategic advantage for elections or for what have you.

  It's usually short-term. And they are not doing it with evil intent. They are doing it so they can stay in office and make good policy. But when the news is only sort of reminding us of those claims being made by both sides at the national level, I think it makes the problem worse.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Back in Canadian, Laurie Brown continues to post occasional stories and updates on The Canadian Record's Web site and Facebook page, which has grown since the paper stopped publishing. But it is a shell of what the paper was.

• Laurie Brown:

  We are still sort of checking that pulse, I think, trying to decide what's the best way to communicate.

  That said, it's not a great revenue model. And I have got people working here who aren't getting paychecks right now. So, I'm not getting a paycheck.

• Judy Woodruff:

  No paycheck. That's not sustainable, is it?

• Laurie Brown:

  Not sustainable.

  It's just we're — I have good people who work with me, and they care as much about this newspaper as I do and this community. I mean, look at this. Look at this.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Yes, look at — look at her face.

• Laurie Brown:

  You're writing stories about people's lives that they will remember forever.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Yes.

  Brown says she hopes to find a new owner of the paper, someone to continue her family's legacy, telling the important stories of this place and its people.

• Laurie Brown:

  Information is the key to our democracy, facts, truth, good information.

  And, also, just that conversation that we, I think, enable, it's essential. And so I worry all the time about it. I want deeply to continue the life of The Canadian Record. I just am not sure how to do it.

• Judy Woodruff:

  In a coming story, we will look at moves to help address the crisis in local news and whether they can fill the gap.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Canadian, Texas.

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