By Jim Pumarlo, consultant

Since fall 2018, 300 more U.S. newspapers have disappeared, bringing the number over the last 15 years to 2,100. That’s almost 25% of the 9,000 newspapers that were published in 2005.
That’s one upshot of “News Deserts and Ghost Newspapers: Will Local News Survive?,” a report published June 25 by Penelope Muse Abernathy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Rural and small-city community newspapers, once the healthiest segment of the industry, are now caught up in its decline. One-third of the closed newspapers were outside metropolitan areas, the report says.

Q: A resident of our county, on her Facebook page, posted information supporting one candidate and casting innuendos on the other in a July runoff. The social media post is a string of allegations in the form of questions that could affect the election. What should we consider before we proceed with our coverage?

None of us are blind to racial injustice in America. Currently, most of us are involved in covering protests against that injustice whether we are the smallest of weeklies or the largest of dailies, because these protests are happening everywhere in our state. 
This brings up, for newspapers, the delicate issues of race and our collective past that we must be prepared to address when our communities and our readers ask us to be accountable for such things. 

Governor: Hospitals must expand capacity as COVID-19 cases escalate
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott has again suspended elective surgeries in hospitals in 104 counties located within 11 of the state’s 22 trauma service areas.
Each of the trauma service areas has a regional advisory council and a trauma system plan to respond to health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Governor’s order mandates wearing of face masks in public
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott on July 2 issued an executive order to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus while keeping Texas as open as possible for business.
With few exceptions, the order requires all Texans to wear a face covering over the nose and mouth in public spaces in counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases. 

Governor, education commissioner say schools will open in fall
AUSTIN — While COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, case counts, hospitalizations and deaths increased last week, more and more Texans ventured out of their homes with the deadly coronavirus showing no sign of abatement.

Governor promises action to family of George Floyd
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott pledged to institute police reforms when he met with the Houston family of George Floyd, who was handcuffed and killed by police in front of a Minneapolis convenience store on May 25.

The killing of George Floyd and the ensuing civil unrest have placed journalists at the center of large-scale protests and demonstrations across the United States, including in major metropolitan centers throughout Texas.  In the course of covering these protests, many journalists have found themselves in harm’s way, and members of the press corps have been assaulted, detained, or arrested in the line of duty.

Our country may not be in a depression, but the newspaper business is, and its fatality rate may be as great at that of the coronavirus. The pandemic and its economic restrictions have accelerated closures and mergers, which have increasingly affected county-seat weeklies, long the most stable type of American newspaper.