“You Had to be Reporting Constantly”: COVID-19’s impact on U.S. weekly newspapers’ journalistic routines

This study examines COVID-19’s impact on the journalistic routines of U.S. community newspapers during the pandemic’s early months. Oral history interviews with 22 journalists and state newspaper association directors indicate weekly journalists discarded entrenched journalistic routines to better serve their communities during a crisis. However, structural issues with business models, internet access and legal definitions of newspapers hinder weeklies from fully embracing the digital era during a crisis and in the long term.

Income or inconvenience? Digital video advertising adoption lags among U.S. community newspapers

This study reviews diffusion of video and video advertising on the Web sites of 400 community news outlets in the United States. Results suggest that while a significant number of community news outlets publish editorial videos online, video advertising lags behind larger publications. The study argues that elements such as circulation and size of a media corporation have little influence on the development and use of video and video advertising on community media Web sites in the U.S.

Local newspapers and coronavirus: conceptualising connections, comparisons and cures

Within weeks of the nation-wide COVID-19 shutdown, more than 200 regional and community newspapers across Australia announced they could no longer keep their presses running due to the unprecedented crisis. A drain in advertising spend, a broken business model and the refusal of digital behemoths to pay for content were blamed for their collapse, ironically as audiences’ demand for credible news and information soared across the globe. There is no doubt the COVID-19 crisis has widened existing, deep cracks in the news media industry. In response this article sets out to explore possible solutions and strategies for local newspapers in the post-pandemic media landscape. We take an analogical approach to argue some of the issues that emerged during COVID-19 and strategies used to fight the global health pandemic also present valuable lessons for the preservation of public interest journalism and news at the local level. We conceptualise five coronavirus-related themes that resonate with a much-needed innovations agenda for local newspapers in Australia: (1) support for essential services, (2) warnings of complacency against an evolving biological threat, (3) appreciating the power of the social (4) coordinated government/policy responses and (5) ‘we are all in this together’.

Journalism, public health, and COVID-19: some preliminary insights from the Philippines

In this essay, we engage with the call for Extraordinary Issue: Coronavirus, Crisis and Communication. Situated in the Philippines, we reflect on how COVID-19 has made visible the often-overlooked relationship between journalism and public health. In covering the pandemic, journalists struggle with the shrinking space for press freedom and limited access to information as they also grapple with threats to their physical and mental well-being. Digital media enable journalists to report even in quarantine, but new challenges such as the wide circulation of health mis-/disinformation and private information emerge. Moreover, journalists have to contend with broader structural contexts of shutdown not just of a mainstream broadcast but also of community newspapers serving as critical sources of pandemic-related information. Overall, we hope this essay broadens the dialogue among journalists, policymakers, and healthcare professionals to improve the delivery of public health services and advance health reporting.

Community Newspaper as a Tool for Community Development: A Readers’ Perception Study ofIdikelethuNewspaper in Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa

This paper evaluates readers’ perceptions of Idikelethu newspaper as a tool for community development, particularly in Alice, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Data was collected from two focus group discussions that were held in the areas where Idikelethu newspaper has high readership rates. The findings revealed that development-related issues such as health awareness, education and community safety, among others, are regularly addressed by this community newspaper. Based on the findings and analysis of data, this study concludes that Idikelethu newspaper contributes in many ways to the development of its readers and Alice community in general. It is anticipated that the findings of this paper will play an important role in assisting Idikelethu and other community newspapers to function better as agents of community development.