Despite the doomsday headlines and predictions about the future of newspapers, it is important to note that the problems of the newspaper business “are not uniform across the industry.” In fact, according to the Pew’s State of the News Media 2010 report, “small dailies and community weeklies, with the exception of some that are badly positioned or badly managed,” still do better than many “big-city papers.”⁴⁶ The report also suggested that smaller papers in smaller communities remain “the dominant source for local information and the place for local merchants to advertise.”⁴⁷

Smaller newspapers are doing better for several reasons. First, small towns and cities often don’t have local TV stations, big-city magazines, or numerous radio stations competing against newspapers for ad space. This means that smaller papers are more likely to retain their revenue from local advertisers. Second, whether they are tiny weekly papers serving small towns or campus newspapers serving university towns, such papers have a loyal and steady base of readers who cannot get information on their small communities from any other source. In fact, many college newspaper editors report that the most popular feature in their papers is the “police report”: It serves as a kind of local gossip, listing the names of students “busted” over the weekend for underage drinking or public intoxication.

Finally, because smaller newspapers tend to be more consensus-oriented than conflict-driven in their approach to news, these papers usually do not see the big dips in ad revenue that may occur when editors tackle complex or controversial topics that are divisive. For example, when a major regional newspaper does an investigative series on local auto dealers for poor service or shady business practices, those dealers—for a while—can cancel advertising that the paper sorely needs. While local papers fill in the gaps left by large mainstream papers and other news media sources, they still face some of the same challenges as large papers and must continue to adapt to retain readers and advertisers.