I’ve read several articles and editorials in recent months about the demise of local newspapers. An editorial in The New York Times last November reported that 204 counties in the United States had no local newspaper, and 1,562 counties had only one. The Medill Local News Initiative found that in addition to the 204 counties without a local paper, another 228 counties were at risk of becoming “news deserts” in the near future. Some writers go so far as to say the local newspaper is going extinct.
Local newspapers have been sources for information about local issues and politics since before our nation began. Without local sources, it is hard for citizens to learn about the issues that most directly affect their daily lives.
Lack of support for local newspapers is not a new phenomenon. I’ve used mid-19th century newspapers in Oregon and California to research my historical novels. In that era, as now, local newspapers came and went frequently. It was as hard for newspapers to get subscribers in the mid-19th century as it is today. Readers complained about the slant of the papers’ editors, just as they do today.
Moreover, my perception is that newspapers were even more partisan then than they are in the 21st century. Today, there is a stated code of ethics, though I think many modern readers would argue that often journalists do not follow it.
The Society of Professional Journalists Code states “Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough.” The Society promotes four principles: (1) to seek truth and report it, (2) to minimize harm, (3) to act independently, and (4) to be accountable and transparent.
By these standards, many 19th-century newspaper publishers failed miserably. They were blatantly partisan in the news they chose to report. They used slanderous adjectives in describing the subjects of news stories. They did not report their sources. And they ridiculed racial and ethnic minorities, women, and anyone else shunned by the mores of their day.
Some towns in the 19th century were fortunate to have several papers of varying political perspectives. Citizens in these towns could draw their own conclusions from the variety of biases depicted across several publications. But then, as now, some towns had only one paper. In these communities, the public either read the paper and agreed, read the paper and cursed the editor, or skipped reading the paper altogether.
Sometimes, there were overt rivalries between the papers. For example, The New Northwest, Abigail Duniway’s newspaper in Portland, Oregon, promoted women’s suffrage and other “human rights” issues of the day. A competing paper, The Oregonian, was edited by Abigail’s brother Harvey Scott beginning in 1866. He was fired in 1872 when the paper changed hands and the new owner had different opinions, but he was rehired and resumed editing the paper in 1877 and continued until 1910. During Mr. Scott’s tenure, The Oregonian had a bias toward promoting business and commercial issues. One article about Harvey Scott said he “monitored political issues—territorial, state, and national—and told his readers how to vote.”
By modern standards, the newspapers of Oregon failed the journalists’ code. In fact, what became known as the “Oregon Style” of journalism depended on satire and ridicule to attack its opposition. See here and here. One article described the rivalries between the Salem Statesman, The Oregonian, and the Oregon Argus as a “take no prisoners” approach. A 1928 article from the Oregon Historical Quarterly even lauded the Oregon Style as developing discernment among its readers. (It should be noted that the author of this article, Leslie M. Scott, was Harvey Scott’s son.)
When I read articles about the demise of local newspapers, I take them with a grain of salt. There has always been turnover in how we get the news, and there will be turnover in the future. At the present time, we have so many sources of news that did not exist in the mid-19th century. These sources, like those in the past, can be biased and inaccurate, and we must all be discerning readers, regardless of where we get our news.
Do you read the local newspapers in your area?
