Stephen Crane stood behind a table at the Morgan County Fair in South-Central Indiana one year ago. Through handshakes and friendly conversation, Crane convinced about 700 people to pay for a newspaper that didn’t yet exist.
At the time, local news was scarce in Morgan County. But Crane knew the community well and bet that if he provided a high-quality print newspaper with local stories, the locals would buy it.
Weeks later, Crane’s paper, the Morgan County Correspondent, began arriving on readers' doorsteps every Thursday. Could a small town in Indiana support a business model far past its prime? So far, they have.
Thousands of local news startups, most of them not-for-profit, are sprouting across the U.S. These often online-exclusive enterprises are looking for a fresh model to rescue an industry marked by decline. In contrast, Crane’s startup is deliberately retrograde.
Crane felt the Martinsville, Indiana, community still wanted a physical newspaper filled with local stories. Industry experts advised against the move: print circulation continues its steep decline nationwide, and one man surely wouldn’t be enough to reverse widespread industry trends. Crane decided to try anyway.
Crane, founder and editor of the young newspaper, describes his path into journalism as a “stumble.” The Martinsville native earned his degree in theology, taught English to Chinese factory workers in the Northern Mariana Islands and spent time as a “snowboard bum” in Colorado. He settled back in his hometown and began his local journalism career after getting his master’s degree from nearby Indiana University.
Starting in 2017, Crane was a reporter and then editor for the Reporter-Times, a newspaper based in Martinsville and founded in 1889. Gatehouse acquired the paper in 2019, which was later acquired by Gannett the same year. Crane left in 2022, and the Times’s last reporter left the same year. A reporter hasn’t been hired at the Reporter Times since. After 130 years, Martinsville no longer had local journalism.
Six months after the county fair, the Correspondent increased its subscribers to nearly 2,000. Nearly all subscribers pay to receive the paper weekly. A six-month print and digital subscription is $45, and the annual subscription is $75. Subscriptions also include access to the paper’s website.
Newspapers in towns of around 12,000 are hardly ever optimistic these days. Small papers nationwide continue to close their doors and slash production days. Roughly two and a half newspapers closed every week in 2023. Yet in Martinsville, the Correspondent plans to increase page counts and add color pages.
“We don’t care about our online,” Crane said.
Residents have even agreed to higher prices in exchange for a better print product, according to the Correspondent’s CFO Josh Messmer.
The paper isn’t profitable yet, but it expects to break into profit by the end of the year — far sooner than Crane and Messmer originally expected.
Crane initially told his investors they should be ready to depart with their money and never see it again. That didn’t deter the group of nine from investing $250,000 anyway. The goal wasn’t to make a profit but to bring back a community newspaper.
Morgan County’s media coverage is similar to that of rural and small cities nationwide. Martinsville, the county seat, is sandwiched between the state capital of Indianapolis and Bloomington, the home of Indiana University. Being adjacent to these cities, the bigger markets often overshadow Martinsville’s stories.
When Crane set out to bring local news back to Morgan County after years of editing and reporting in his hometown, he brought together community stakeholders to purchase the Reporter-Times. Gannett, the corporate owners of the Reporter-Times, declined its offers. Undeterred, Crane asked his investors if they would back an even more ambitious idea: a brand-new newspaper in 2023.
The Correspondent has done everything it can to effectively brand itself as a local newspaper. Stories are locally written and locally sourced, and there isn’t much that would appeal to a reader outside the county. Crane writes columns about his family and the birth of his most recent child. Community members contribute pieces about the joys and trials of aging, the magic of March Madness and recommendations for home-cooked recipes.
All in all, it’s what a community newspaper used to be.
Newspapers operate in a unique prism. They are community assets but also profit-generating devices. Journalism is often thought of similarly to teaching, art, or historical research: to enrich lives rather than fatten wallets. But the economic models of journalism do not reflect its perception. Historically, newspapers became one of the most profitable industries in the developed world in the 20th century. With declines in the following decades, newspapers that could not keep a profit margin were shuttered.
When the last paper in rural McDowell County, West Virginia closed last year, residents likened the loss to losing a family member. Areas that lose local news coverage are more likely to be older, low-income and less likely to be college-educated.
The documented impacts of news deserts are widespread. Local newspapers are a bedrock of community information. They increase institutional trust and combat misinformation in ways national media outlets cannot. They also document the lives and stories of those in the community.
Just a few blocks from the Correspondent’s headquarters, an office sits empty in Martinsville’s quaint downtown. The office bears the sign “The Reporter, since 1889” and a note on the door that says “closed, please call again.” But every day and hour are the same: an empty office and a locked door.
Despite its lack of personnel, the paper is not out of business. The Times is now what industry experts call a “ghost newspaper.” The paper has an updated website and still offers a print edition, but it's filled with stories from Gannett-owned newspapers outside of Morgan County with functioning newsrooms.
Still, the Reporter-Times rolls off the press six days a week and is trucked 230 miles to Martinsville from Peoria, Illinois, rarely containing content specific to Morgan County.
Headlines from the Times often include the winning Mega Millions and Powerball numbers, stories of Indiana and Purdue basketball and the release of the blockbuster movie trailers. While the content serves a purpose, it isn’t relevant to the community it is intended to serve.
The rise of so-called ghost papers in the U.S. is well documented. Local newspapers owned by large chains often become content aggregators — not local content producers. The Reporter-Times is no exception, and local readers have noticed.
Last November, the Reporter-Times republished an article originally written for the Evansville Courier and Press, which highlighted the different strains of marijuana that one could take to “get through” the holidays. The article acknowledges marijuana possession remains illegal in Indiana but continues to explain where to buy the substance both in and out of state — which upset Judge Brian H. Williams of Morgan County’s Superior Court.
Williams wrote a letter to the editor, featured in the Correspondent but aimed directly at Gannett and the Reporter-Times, last December entitled “Irresponsible ‘journalism’ demands responsible action.”
“I would write this letter to the Reporter-Times, but I am unaware of any recent letter sections in that paper,” Williams wrote. “It appears to be a paper with no local editor, no local coverage, and now, no sense of local values. Ghost newsrooms are real, and not a single name appears in their online directory.”
“Further, it’s exasperating to realize I will in the next few days be ordering and sending revenue to the Reporter-Times by way of required legal notice publications,” he continued. “My court operations will effectively subsidize this thoughtless ‘journalism.’”
Although the business model for these small papers and their owners are inconsistent across the country, many papers continue to exist simply because of revenue from legal notices.
These notices, usually comprised of announcements for legal name changes, government land acquisitions and public hearings, are the most solid revenue block for small-town newspapers after the decline of print advertising. Many states still have laws requiring community newspapers to print these notices.
Gannett did not respond to staffing-related questions at the Reporter-Times.
The Correspondent will see a significant boost after the passage and enaction of Indiana Enrolled Act 252. The law, which will allow newspapers to publish legal notices after 12 months of publishing instead of three years, opens the door for the Correspondent to bring in legal notice revenue. Crane said he expects the Correspondent to receive this revenue starting in October.
Crane answered a phone call early on Monday morning in February. A nearby Christian school’s girls’ basketball team won the state championship and hoped to be featured in Crane’s newspaper.
The Correspondent ran a full-length story on the team’s sixth state tournament victory in a row; the Times did not cover the team’s victory.
Crane understands his responsibility well. Readers share stories of their families gathering around the table on Thursdays to read his newspaper.
“People tell us they can’t wait for the paper to hit their mailbox,” Crane said.
The kids in Martinsville may be the last to grow up with a physical newspaper arriving at their doorstep, or they will be the first part of a trend bigger than themselves – deliberately retrograde media; information, once again, without screens.
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