9 News and Newspapers: Then and Now

By Dave Bostwick

While working for small-town newspapers early in my career, my job was to write sports and news stories, but I often had other duties. When needed, I collected daily stock market prices, edited obituaries and wedding summaries for the society section, maintained a darkroom for printing photos, collected information for ads, and helped load newspapers onto delivery trucks.

Before widespread internet usage, a local daily newspaper was a one-size-fits all publication with something to interest almost everyone in the community, including local news, national news, restaurant coupons, help-wanted ads, movie listings, police and government records (often with weddings and divorces), high-school sports coverage, comics and puzzles.

Readers would complain, sometimes for good reasons, about mistakes or biased coverage. However, they kept subscribing to the newspaper because it served as an unofficial record of each day’s important events as well as a valued source of information and entertainment. Local newspapers were convenient and usually credible.

Today, restaurant owners can more easily post coupons on social media, commercial websites offer localized job openings, movie theaters list movies and sell tickets online directly to the public, smartphone apps give us a variety of puzzles to solve, sports teams maintain their own websites that offer statistics and promotional stories, and large online news outlets can publish breaking news updates multiple times per day.

Perhaps the hardest part of this digital transition has been keeping consumers interested in local news when the other parts of the traditional newspaper no longer have as much value.

History’s First Draft

Philip L. Graham, former president and publisher of The Washington Post, is often cited for this famous quotation:

“Journalism is the first rough draft of history.”

The USA Today front page (shown above) from Sept. 12, 2001, is an example of newspaper editors attempting to capture a first draft of what we now refer to as 9-11.

Below is another example, a 1912 newspaper clipping on display at the Henry B. Plant Museum in Tampa Bay, Florida. It illustrates the value of newspapers to document history and provide glimpses of societal norms from bygone eras.

Newspaper Evolution

As you read this chapter, consider the effects of technology, especially the internet, on the newspaper industry’s role in chronicling local and national history.

The following presentation provides a brief overview of U.S. newspapers.

Study the following presentation slides by using the forward button or clicking on sections of the control bar. To enlarge any interactive presentation in this book, click on the lower-right full-screen option (arrows). 

Even as print newspaper subscriptions have declined, the four legacy brands discussed in the following presentation have remained relevant nationwide during their transition to digital delivery.

A Steady Local Decline

Although the four large national newspapers discussed above have survived and sometimes flourished in the past 15 years, most local newspapers are struggling. Hundreds of smaller newspapers have closed.

As one Axios analysis said, “The inequity between giants like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and their local counterparts represents a growing problem in America as local communities no longer have the power to set the agenda for the news that most affects them.”

Research from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism showed that “more than half of the nation’s 3,143 counties have little to no local news,” creating what have been called news deserts where a community has no newspaper coverage.

An Associated Press summary of Northwestern’s past research noted that “areas of the country that find themselves without a reliable source of local news tend to be poorer, older and less educated than those covered well.” Furthermore, newspaper employment has decreased 70% since 2006, and newspaper revenues have fallen approximately 60% since 2005.

One newspaper editor, Mary Beth Schneider, summed up the declining newspaper industry like this:

People who got their news online for free for decades balk at paying for it. And people who still subscribe grumble about cancelling because the paper has shrunk — a direct result of the routine and massive layoffs that have affected newspapers across the nation. Fewer dollars equals fewer reporters equals less news coverage.

Local newspapers have traditionally functioned as an unofficial fourth estate (or branch) of government, serving as a watchdog over government affairs. However, as Schneider noted, news deserts contribute to lower participation in elections and increased government corruption.

A grave concern in the 2020s is that consumers are no longer interested in local news, even if it’s free. For example, Columbia Journalism Review summarized a research study in which 2,529 people were offered a free subscription to their local newspaper, either the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or the Philadelphia Inquirer. Only 44 people, or less than 2 percent, accepted the free subscription.

As a summary from Harvard’s Nieman Lab noted, “Worldwide, people in all age groups are ditching news sites and publishers’ apps in favor of social media and video networks.”

A glimmer of good news is that locally focused newspapers that survive are growing their online traffic and digital revenue even as print revenue declines.

And ironically, many collegiate journalism students are reluctant to give up print in their campus newspapers. This is in part because they think the print edition is more distinctive and provides better opportunities for creativity.

Archiving the First Draft of History

In the previous chapter on books, we studied drawbacks with digital archiving. This is even more true for local newspapers, so let’s re-examine archiving from a newspaper perspective.

To consider advantages of print archiving and concerns with digital archiving, click on the two topic titles in the interactive graphic below.

Related to preserving newspapers as the first rough draft of history, digital curator Giulia Carla Rossi provided valuable perspective for the Guardian.

There is a misconception that when something is on the internet it is there forever. We’ve found that’s definitely not the case and there are so many websites that – for a variety of reasons, including people just not paying for their domain any more, or some kind of update that goes wrong – have completely disappeared.

For example, thousands of FiveThirtyEight articles seemingly vanished from the Internet. The New York Times reported that articles with election analysis and data, stretching back to FiveThirtyEight’s founding in 2008, are no longer accessible.

The newspaper industry in Arkansas mirrors national trends. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, under the same ownership, have ceased daily print publication. Instead, subscribers can subscribe to view a replica of a weekday printed newspaper on an iPad provided by the newspaper. In promoting this offering, the newspaper’s publisher said, “They can keep the iPads as long as they continue to subscribe.”

Some publications have focused on non-profit journalism. For example, Arkansas Advocate, which launched in 2022, labels itself as an “independent, nonpartisan news organization” that reports on “how state government affects the lives of everyday Arkansans so they can make informed decisions about themselves, their families and their communities.”

Arkansas Advocate, which is supported by grants and donations, is one of many state-focused news sites affiliated with the national nonprofit States Newsroom. Content is free, and readers are encouraged to make donations.

A Shortage of Younger Readers

The apathy and cynicism of younger audiences is a challenge for newspapers in particular and the news industry as a whole.

For example, the News Literacy Project found that 84% of U.S. teens had a negative view of news media. Some of the most common one-word descriptions of news were “biased,” “boring,” “crazy,” and “fake.” Also, the research report said that “more teens believe journalists are skilled at lying and deceiving than informing the public.”

A research study from Harvard described how young adults have developed “algorithmic cynicism.” Those who get news from social media platforms are often aware of how algorithms shape their social media experiences, but “they may come to believe that individual efforts to resist or correct algorithmic influence are ineffective, leading to inaction rather than engagement.”

Furthermore, a report from Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that “younger groups, especially those aged 18-24, are much more likely than older ones to prefer watching — or listening to — the news.” This helps explain why social media overtook television in 2025 as Americans’ top news source.

Simply put, one research report found that “young people want their news to be more fun” and more entertaining.

Is Google Zero Inevitable?

AI-generated search responses and chatbot overviews are an immediate challenge for news organizations. For example, if a search tool such as Google Gemini generates an AI overview before providing a list of relevant links, many users will skip the links.

According to one industry analysis published in the Logic, news executives are concerned about “Google Zero,” an informal term that describes the theoretical moment when AI platforms could distribute all information and no longer send Google search traffic to third-party news sites.

The New York Times reported that due to Google’s adoption of AI-generated summaries, “people are spending more time with Google than ever.” As a result, they are spending less time outside of Google and on the larger internet, where online news publishers need audiences to generate revenue.

According to the 2026 Digital News Report from the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute, 16% of respondents under age 35 said they had used a chatbot for news in the past week.

A previous Reuters survey of news consumers found that people who use chatbots for news consider them unbiased and good enough.

If you are a casual consumer, you may appreciate the instantaneous response you get from an AI-generated news overview. However, if you are a media professional, especially at a local level, you should be worried that AI search summaries could impede your ability to reach audiences directly.

Research results published in 2026 said that people who rely on AI chatbot summaries are “willing to make the trade-off” for convenience and speed over accuracy. They know AI summaries are sometimes inaccurate, but they still prefer using AI summaries over clicking on actual news stories.

A research project from the Pew Research Center featured these four takeaways:

• Google users who encounter an AI summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one.
• Google users are more likely to end their browsing session entirely after visiting a search page with an AI summary than on pages without a summary.
• The most frequently cited sources in both Google AI summaries and standard search results are Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit.
• Google searches that contain more words, ask questions or use full sentences tend to produce AI summaries more often.

Amid this forecast for a “zero-click future,” AdWeek reported that a few publishers have considered opting out of Google search so that they do not just give free content to search and AI platforms.

Furthermore, Digiday explained how “publishers are now beginning to treat AI answer engines less as a source of human referrals and more as a distribution layer.” The article suggested that future websites may be designed for an AI-based ecosystem “where mentions and citations matter more than clicks.”

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said the news industry must “make the case that original reporting is an essential ingredient in healthy societies, secure nations and strong democracies— and show how the actions of the tech giants are putting it at risk.”

What Is a Newspaper Today?

Although printed newspapers may not seem as prevalent or impactful today, they have a prominent place in the evolution of U.S. mass media

Most consumers still use the word “newspaper” when describing online content from legacy newspaper sites.

Thus, online “newspaper” journalists may still provide the first draft of history, even when there’s little or no ink and paper involved,