Geoff: Over the past few decades, more than 2000 newspapers across the country have closed. Leaving many communities without a reliable source of local information. Researchers say this crisis in journalism driven by changes in technology is fueling the country's political divisions. Judy woodruff recently visited on community in north Texas as part of her ongoing series America at a crossroads. Judy: Tucked away in the Texas panhandle, in an isolated pocket of the country long dominated by ranching, drilling, and the railroad is the city of Canadian, population 2300. But since March of this year, a longtime fixture of this community, something residents say had bound them together through good times and bad has been missing. >> It's just got a kind of a hole in it, you know, a vacancy right now. >> I just don't know who's going to be sharing all of the champions and the good news in our community. >> It's almost like a death in the family. We don't talk about it a lot. We just go, oh, I can't believe we don't have it. Judy: Earlier this year, the city's weekly newspaper, the Canadian record, stopped printing. These days its bracket sits empty. But for decades, Laurie brown would put up a flag outside her office each Thursday to let the town know that the newest edition was available. The record was a family affair that became her life's work, and in its pages brown documented the city council, school and hospital board meetings. The impacts of droughts and wildfires, the babies born, football games won, and residents lost. She lobbied for the construction of a new assisted living center, Mesa view, and for the installation of a blinking stop sign at a three-way highway intersection that had seen too many fatal accidents. >> I tell people we've sometimes helped good things happen and we often stopped bad things from happening. And it's not because we're so powerful, it's because information is powerful. And we're making sure the community, the people who care about these things, know about them. We had probably five or six pages of classifieds. They're pretty much down to one 1, 1 and a half now. Judy: Yet after so many years of holding the paper together as classified ad purchases dwindled, and reporters left and were not replaced, earlier this year, brown made the difficult decision to suspend publication. >> We were already working on sort of a shoestring. And I just didn't see how I could do it. I needed a break, and it was the hardest decision I've ever made. And I still lie awake at night wondering whether it was a good decision or not. Judy: What's happened to the record here in Canadian is not unique. Across the country, over the past two decades, more than 2200 weekly newspapers have closed down, and tens of thousands of reporters have been laid off. And researchers say that not only has profound effects on the practice of journalism, but also on the country's civic health. >> Local news is something that reminds people of what they have in common, both their challenges and their shared identities, their shared culture, their shared community. Judy: Johanna Dunaway is a professor and research director at Syracuse university's institute for democracy, journalism and citizenship. She says the broad decline of local newspapers nationally driven largely by plummeting revenue, as advertising moved online has contributed to the rising polarization now seen across the country. >> National news, for all of its many benefits, it tends to frame politics in America through the lens of the major conflicts between the two parties, right? For those Americans or those citizens who are only watching the national news, they often only get this sort of game-frame style coverage that it's almost like sports reporting with Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. >> Facing a growing showdown with Republicans over America's ability to pay off its debt, president Biden speaking -- >> Mccarthy is putting the blame on Joe Biden here. >> We are both old enough to remember when Republicans were going after Democrats for defund the police. >> One of the things local news does is reminds people that, oh, that person, they may be of the other party, but they're facing the same challenge that I'm facing. >> We have always reported the news that is the most important to the people who live here. Judy: In 2017, documentary filmmaker Heather Courtney began following Laurie brown as she covered this largely rural, conservative community that voted overwhelming for president trump in 2016 and again in 2020. >> What happens if nobody is doing this? Judy: Highlighting her complex relationship with her fellow Canadians, who relied on brown and her reporting even as they often disagreed with her editorials. >> They didn't want me to report it, that Biden won that election. By god, the electoral college has voted and Joe Biden will be our president, and I'm going to make sure it is in the newspaper. >> She says in the film that her politics don't match the politics of this town. But at the same time, the people here are very still very much supportive of the paper. And they'll go and they'll talk to Laurie about whatever they might disagree about in her editorial. And I think that that's something that has broken down in most places around the country. Judy: Steve Rader is a rancher who lives 18 miles outside of Canadian, in the adjoining county. Hi, there. >> There is rose. Judy: For him, the record was a lifeline to the community, and to his past and its loss has been especially hard. >> Our paper spoiled us. They did so much work and it was so colorful and beautiful and they celebrated our successes and our tough times. Judy: Feels personal. >> Yeah. Yeah. That paper was part of our life. People from hundreds of miles away came and supported our community. Judy: In 2017, a wildfire burned more than 300,000 acres, including 12 sections of grass on Rader's ranch, four trailers, equipment, and 85 cattle. >> But if the paper hadn't told about it, nobody would have known. And people responded. People we didn't even know from all over the country sent us hay and feed. A lady from New Mexico sent us ten cows to replace the ones that had died. And the paper, not that we were whining or needing attention, but it brought it to the forefront and documented what happened. Judy: Laurie, the editor, who put her own opinions as editor in the paper. Did you always agree with what she was writing? >> No. No. But she always made me think. I hate to say it, Judy, but her family opposed the Vietnam war in the 1970's and they received a lot of flak over that. And looking back, I think they were totally right. We need to have other opinions. That's the strength of America , thank god for that. >> I don't want to live in a place that has echo chambers everywhere, where everyone thinks the same. Judy: Wendie cook is the executive director of the citadelle art museum, a collection housed in a former Baptist church downtown. She moved here from Dallas years ago with her husband, who grew up in Canadian. In addition to the museum, she works as an interior designer, and for the past six years, has served on the city council. Without the paper, she worries that a level of accountability in local government will be lost. >> [00:17:50]I have a concern -- >> I have a concern about who is telling the critical pieces of information. The city is facing a bond election. Who is giving the factual information about how that bond election is going to fund? Right now, without the Canadian record, I fear that our voter information is coming from our stuffed mailboxes, from candidates or from PACS, who by their very nature are providing biased material for our community. >> Right now, if there's a name that pops up on a ballot for one of the elections and you do not know them, you really don't have no means of finding out, who are they? Where did they come from? Are they married? Do they have kids? Judy: John Julian operates a water-well construction business in town and he agrees with Wendie cook. >> It kind of leaves me at a 50-50 flip of a coin. Do I vote yes or do I vote no for them. If you don't know. And I don't like to be in that position. If I'm going to make a vote, I want it to be an informed, educated vote. >> People don't feel comfortable voting when they know virtually nothing about the people running for office. Judy: Johanna Dunaway, of Syracuse university, says that in addition to the loss of shared identity, when a local news source closes, there are potentially a number of other impacts, including more corruption and irresponsible spending, more straight ticket voting, less competitive elections and lower turnout. >> And then it is just more of a cycle. The legislators or city council people or mayoral office folks realize this, and so why would they cater to the people who are not going to vote for them? So then they're only sort of behaving in lockstep with the preferences of the people who do vote. And those are the citizens who tend to have very strong partisan preferences and tend to have the most extreme policy preferences. And so then you get more polarizing behavior on the part of both the voters and those holding office. Judy: Do you think that our country can stay strong, that our democracy can stay strong well into the future with, frankly, you know, hollowed out local journalism? >> I worry that it can't because I worry that we are more susceptible to this kind of tribal attitude and behavior that sometimes political elites at the national level on both sides, they try to use that to sort of for their own strategic advantage for elections or for what have you. It's usually short-term. They are not doing it with people intend, they are doing it so they can stay in office and make policy. I think it makes the problem worse. Judy: Back in Canadian, Laurie brown continues to post occasional stories and updates on the Canadian record's website and Facebook page, which has grown since the paper stopped publishing. But it is a shell of what the paper was. >> We are still sort of checking that pulse. Trying to decide what's the best way to communicate and how to do it. That said, you know, it's not a great revenue model and I've got people working here who aren't getting paychecks right now, so I'm not getting a paycheck. Judy: No paycheck. That's not sustainable. >> Not sustainable. I have good people who work with me and they care as much about this newspaper as I do and this community. Look at this. Look at this. You're writing stories about people's lives that they will remember forever. Judy: Brown says she hopes to find a new owner of the paper someone to continue her family's legacy, telling the important stories of this place and its people. >> Information is the key to our democracy. Facts. Truth. Good information. And also just that conversation that we enable. It's essential. And so I worry all the time about it. I want deeply to continue the life of the Canadian record. I just am not sure how to do it. Judy: In a coming story, we will look at moves to help address the crisis in local news and whether they can fill the gap. For the pbs newshour, I'm Judy woodruff in Canadian, Texas. ♪♪
