Guest: New UND journalism program defies trend

With the hope of increasing the number of local journalists, the University of North Dakota intends to create a new department of journalism. This comes at a time when smaller newspapers are dropping left and right.

According to Joshua Irvine, reporting in Forum Communications, half of North Dakota counties have only one news outlet. As the present editors retire, new ones are not coming forward to buy newspapers.

Losing Revenue

Dying main streets have no advertising revenue and the vacant countryside offers few subscribers.

The Ness group of eight newspapers did not have a bidder when Truman Ness decided that enough was enough. Larger communities — Killdeer, Walhalla, Tioga, and others — have lost their newspapers.

It is the hope of University reorganizers that the J-Program “will increase the supply of local journalists to populate the state’s local news outlets.”

Irvine quotes Cecile Wehrman, executive director of the North Dakota Newspaper Association, as pointing out that homegrown journalists are more likely to understand small-town history and culture in rural North Dakota.

That is an excellent point but it doesn’t deal with the core of the problem, which is economic stability to attract young writers looking for a long-term career in a sustainable market.

Time To Reassess

We are at a point when it is necessary to reassess our traditional thinking about local newspapers.

In the past, we have thought of them as economic entities that must rely on available revenue to survive. The traditional economics for local newspapers is gone. So are the bonds of hometown community.

And because newspapers must be independent to be objective sources of information, they have always been held at arms-length and left to deal with the economic consequences of that independence.

In a Rut

As proposed earlier by this column, we need a new paradigm – one that is broader than just the economics. Appeals for new initiatives have been rebuffed because of commitment to an old paradigm that doesn’t work in the present electronic age. We are in a rut.

To become viable, local newspapers must consider compromising traditional independence in exchange for support beyond usual boundaries.

In the past, I have suggested – to the horror of traditional editors – that city budgets include free subscriptions for former residents who want to keep up with their home town. There are hundreds of them.

Then there is the school system where writing skills can be developed and junior or seniors enrolled in internships or classes to gather and publish the news. (When I was a sophomore in high school, I was reporting local news for two area weeklies so we know high school students can do it.)

Involve Schools

At the outset, a school may not always have students interested in writing but the experience itself might evoke their interest in a career.

There is a term floating around to address the newspaper question: “cognitive flexibility” which means recognizing a change in terrain and responding to it with flexibility.

Local newspapers have an important impact on the viability of “community”. We know that as the vitality of a community declines the sense of human togetherness declines. Most memories of earlier days are about the sense of community that existed decades ago.

While the organization of a UND journalism entity may produce some additional newspaper writers, the economic and social footings must also be considered. It is a time for cognitive flexibility.