What happens when a community loses its newspaper?

In New England alone, 13 daily papers have closed or gone to weekly publication. Most of those have been in Massachusetts, where six dailies have converted to weekly publication—the Clinton Item, Dedham Daily Tran­script, Haverhill Gazette, Marlboro Enterprise, Hudson Sun, Melrose News, and Waltham News-Tribune—and three—the Beverly Times, the Peabody Times and the Transcript-Telegram—have closed.

All but one of the surviving daily newspapers in New England have seen dramatic drops in circulation, some as high as 70 percent. (The exception is the St. Albans Mes­senger in Vermont). They’re part of a national story about the decline of local newsrooms. The Federal Communi­cations Commission’s recent report entitled “The Inform­a­tion Needs of Communities” estimated that newsrooms have eliminated 13,400 jobs in the past four years, reducing reporting ranks to about the same level as in 1970. A similarly dire study by Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, an independent journalism research center, concluded that annual spending on news gathering also plunged by $1.6 billion. In a sentence, communities across the nation are being covered by fewer reporters armed with fewer resources. And yet, does it matter?