SANFORD, N.C. — The decline in local journalism continues. A new report by Northwestern University says nearly two newspapers in the U.S. are closing every week. In North Carolina, the Mount Olive Tribune shut its doors last month after being in business for 118 years.
What You Need To Know
Mount Olive Tribune shuts its doors after serving the community for 118 years
Northwestern University says nearly two newspapers in the U.S. are closing every week
Longtime journalist and former editor of the Tribune, John Cate, says community journalism is important in an evolving news landscape
John Cate has devoted his life to community journalism for nearly 30 years. He was once the editor of the Mount Olive Tribune, a legacy newspaper that survived two global pandemics, at least 14 wars and 21 presidents. He says the news about it shuttering is very difficult.
“I was sorry that it happened,” Cate said. “It is very hard when you devote that many years of your life to something and felt like you did a good job keeping it going, and then it doesn’t make it after you go.”
Cate, who is now the sports editor for the Sanford Herald, was in charge of the Tribune for seven years from 2008-2015. When he wasn’t commanding the ship, he was out in the field as a reporter covering sports and news.
“When I was there, I mean, even then it was a tough market for journalism, but we did what we could with the resources we had,” Cate said. “I worked very hard every day pretty much to try to keep that paper alive.”
It's the challenge of keeping newspapers afloat in an evolving news landscape.
“The Mount Olive Tribune is not the first newspaper that I presided over that went out of business years after I left,” Cate said. “It makes me very sad to know that.”
With the Tribune gone, the community is left without a newspaper based in Mount Olive.
“You can find out what’s going on in D.C., or you can find out what’s going on in Raleigh, but you can’t really find out too well what’s going on on the Main Street of your town, unless you have somebody who does that,” Cate said. “And that was the role we tried to fill in.”
Spectrum News spoke with Erica Beshears Perel, the director of the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at UNC, for a statewide look at trends in local news, especially in rural parts of North Carolina.
Perel, a former reporter with The Charlotte Observer, says there are three counties in the state that are without a local news outlet. According to the center, a news desert is defined by a county with one or fewer newspapers. She says democracy depends on local news.
“There’s a link between high quality, local news and civic participation by people voting, people attending government meetings, people protesting, people you know, just kind of participating in their own government, holding their leaders accountable and being empowered to do that,” she said.
She believes outside of strong local papers, TV and radio stations, there are some digital startups to help people get their local news.
“There’s some great new outlets coming in to fill gaps,” Perel said. “And to fill gaps that frankly legacy media didn’t always cover well. We’ve got outlets like Enlace Latino NC which is a Spanish-language outlet that covers politics in our state.”