Past Webinars

"Big City Challenges for America’s Rural Newspapers"

Livestreamed October 24

The small-town press in America, with its rural sensibilities, rodeos, and farm news, is rarely folksy and never idyllic. With the decline in small businesses and advertising as its lifeblood, the challenges for the local newspaper are constant. Often operating within razor-thin margins, the loss of a single advertiser is keenly felt. The trends and issues of the big cities trickle down as well—transgender restrooms, sexually explicit library books, Fentanyl—and the discussion is intense. Many of their readers tend toward libertarian views, but the left-right political divide is alive and well. On the hotseat, caught in the middle of strong opinions from people who are neighbors, sits your friendly local newspaper.

Join Charlotte and Loyal Baker, Roger Harnack, and Lou Marzeles, four publisher-editors of rural Washington State newspapers as they discuss their challenges, pressures, and rewards in the news business.