My local newspaper is no longer available in my small town

[berniesandersmittens]

The two convenience stores, dollar general, and family dollar all said they weren't carrying it anymore. The only explanation was that the Sunday edition went up to $4.

Absolutely tragic. You have to travel over 10 miles to get a print.

Is this happening anywhere else?

Edit to add that even the drop boxes were empty and no delivery service is available. You have to pay a whole months subscription to read it online.

[sakabatou]

1. Many local papers can't compete with the larger papers

To get local news, you'd probably have to look online.

[berniesandersmittens]

2. We only have the state paper now

The local one was sold to an out of state corporation a few years ago.

I miss having coffee and reading the paper. I fear that digitalizing our news will greatly reduce folks knowing what's going on locally.

[sakabatou]

6. That's unfortunate

My town still has its local paper. I don't know about state paper, but the major cities have their own.

[surfered]

3. Ours in the nearby big city (pop 300k) was purchase by US Today.

Each daily issue got thinner and thinner. It’s not worth the price, but we continue to support it as it’s the only check on local governance.

Sadly, print media is in trouble.

[MineralMan]

4. It's very hard these days to have a profitable newspaper.

Even in cities. Here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul have their own newspapers. How long that will last I do not know.

What I do know is that I live in a townhome development with 32 units in it. Only I and one other unit subscribes to the Minnesota Star Tribune. 2 out of 32. While that's a small sample, I think it reflects how things are going for newspapers.

I understand, too. Everything in the morning paper, which I go through each morning, was covered by Internet and TV news the day before. You get more details in the paper, but most people do not take the time to sit and read the entire paper.

There are far fewer ads in the paper now than in past years, too. All of the advertising has moved to other media, pretty much. No car dealer ads. No supermarket ads. Not many ads at all. Where does the paper make a profit?

So, the number of pages each day has gone down. The number of reporters has decreased. There are fewer local stories, and almost no investigative reporting.

One by one, subscribers are simply dropping out.

[Vinca]

5. Ours hasn't put out a print edition for a couple of years. Have to subscribe online. It's just not the same.