Erie Reader: The Importance of Local Journalism Right Now

In our era of talking head opinion shows and dubiously-sourced memes being consumed as news, print journalism has never been more important — and despite numerous proclamations in recent decades, print journalism has never been dead. Each decade that print journalism has been eulogized, it has continued to survive and even thrive in many cases. Naturally, there has always been the need to adapt and evolve with the times as well as challenges to overcome, but the global crisis we are currently experiencing poses an existential threat to many newspaper staff rooms around the country (despite a greater need for skilled journalists than ever before).

Before we tumbled into a nearly worldwide lockdown, many newspapers were already facing enormous hurdles. In neighboring Youngtown, Ohio, The Vindicator — operating since 1869, selling 25,000 copies a day, and still family-owned — shut its doors this past August after years of losing money. 

"The idea of a city the size of Youngstown having no newspaper at all was (and is!) depressing for those of us who think local reporting is important to a community," Joshua Benton wrote for NiemanLab that month. "And the fact that the few consolidation-hungry newspaper companies left apparently weren't interested in buying it was another dark indicator of where we were headed."

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