Opportunities and challenges for 2025

Happy 2025 to each of you, and congratulations on another year of essential service to your communities!

By BILL PATTERSON, TPA President 2024-25

Having a local media company these days is not for the faint of heart. It takes guts, perseverance, innovation and a talented team to make it happen.

I hope you’ve seen the national survey that Coda Ventures conducted recently for America’s Newspapers. It’s a reaffirming report that speaks to the trust of local newspapers. Local newspapers ranked as the most trusted local media.

Trust has decreased significantly for national news networks, national cable networks and national newspapers over the past year. Trust in national cable news fell 36 percent, while national network television news and national newspapers dropped 29 percent. Local television news fell 17 percent and local radio news by 16 percent. Trust in local newspapers, meanwhile, fell only 13 percent.

Put another way, 87 percent of respondents still trust their local newspaper. And what about social media? Nationally, only 43 percent trust social media as a news source. So, local newspapers are more than twice as credible as social media.

The survey shows that Americans realize the essential role of local newspapers, with 80% believing it is important to have a local newspaper. That said, our industry is unquestionably facing challenges, The recent 2024 Medill State of Local News Report released in late October made the following points:

• The collapse of local newspapers is showing no sign of slowing. The nation lost 127 newspapers, 2.5 per week for the year ending September 30, 2024. The U.S. has lost more than one-third of its newspapers — about 3300 — since 2005.

• The larger newspaper ownership chains are divesting, while the smaller- to medium-size chains are getting larger.

• There has been a major net increase in stand-alone digital local news sites in the past year, with eighty-one in total. Thirty of the sites are newspapers that converted. Fifty-one is a considerable number of new local news sites launched.

While challenges remain for all of us, we do have some very bright spots. We have growing overall audiences and we’re reaching more people than we ever have – even in the golden years of being a print-only industry.

Here’s to keeping focused on the mission. Your hard work, determination and dedication is what makes local newspapers the most trusted and important source of information in our communities.

Happy New Year!